Some Assembly Required
by Miri1984
Summary: A series of prompts written for various peoples and various communities and for everything else! Set in all my universes and involving all my characters, although I will specify when they are not Fractures related.
1. The Earring

"OW!"

She let the gold slip out of her mouth and sat back.

"What?"

"You'll pull the skin - it's very delicate there..."

"Really? On elves there's virtually no sensation in the lobe, it's all in the tip..."

"What if you pull it with your teeth?"

"Ok, well _that _would hurt. But not so much that I'd squeal like a baby."

Anders sat back a little, rubbing his ear and looking at her with a hurt expression on his face. "I did _not _squeal like a baby."

"OW!" she mocked him. He pursed his lips. "However did you manage to get it pierced if it hurts you that much when I _suck _on it?"

"You call that a suck? You were practically eating it."

"It was a _suck. _Not to mention a gentle, _erotic _suck."

"You have a funny idea of what's erotic."

"Oh, and you _don't, _Mr ice spell in the..."

"You said you _liked _that..."

"Well, true, but..."

"Look, I just don't like it when people mess with my earring, all right? It's... call it a sentimental thing."

"Sentimental?"

He huffed a bit. "It was a gift."

"The earring? I know. From Commander Cousland."

"No. Not the earring. The piercing itself. It was a gift. From someone who helped me. Or who was willing to help me, any way, until..."

Her face hardened. "Who was she?"

"Oh, nothing like _that..."_

"Come on, Anders. You never get _that _expression unless you're talking about some former conquest..."

"Just how many women do you think I've had?"

"More than..."

"Honestly, Neria, if I'd slept with that many women I wouldn't have had time to get further than the Spoiled Princess on _any _of my escape attempts."

Her face didn't soften. He gave a deep sigh and turned to face her on the bed. "I was in Denerim. The escape attempt before the last..."

Trousers _chafed. _He wouldn't mind, except that every time he gave into temptation and adjusted himself he was certain every female within eyeshot smirked at him. No matter how many times he escaped he never got used to the feeling of cloth on his _thighs _and he longed for the freedom of robes again. Of course, wearing mage robes in Denerim would just be seven types of stupid so he was surruptitiously trying to adjust himself under the table in the Gnawed Noble when she approached.

"I heard you were looking for passage on a ship," an _incredibly _sultry voice said. He swallowed nervously, looking up to see a woman in leather armour that almost certainly wouldn't protect against any sort of concerted attack. Mind you, if someone was close enough to attack this woman they'd probably be too distracted by other _things_ to actually follow through with violence.

"Yes," he said, trying to sound normal. "To Orlais."

"Well," she said. "We can get you to Orlais," she slid onto the bench across from him. "Although I'd recommend the Free Marches instead. Orlesians are a little more.. diligent when it comes to hunting apostates, you understand."

"Apostates?" he cocked his head on one side and gave her his most charming grin.

She looked down at his hands, one eyebrow raised. "It's the trousers, I'm afraid," she said. "They always give you people away."

"Ah."

"I have a few idiosyncrasies," she continued. "I will let no one travel aboard my ship until I'm certain of their character."

"I have to prove I'm a good person?" he said.

She laughed. "Not at all. But you do have to prove I can trust you. I have my own methods of getting to know people. In your case..." she looked him up and down. "A game of cards, I think."

"Cards?"

"If you win, I grant you passage for free. If I win - I'll claim my own reward."

"I only have enough money for passage..."

The grin that spread across her face was nothing short of predatory. "Oh, it won't be _money."_

Anders' mind immediately went into overdrive and his trousers were suddenly uncomfortable for an entirely different reason.

Two hours later she was heating a needle over an open flame. Anders was eyeing her warily. "So why is this a reward for _you _precisely?" he asked.

"Call it a way of recognising a... kindred spirit," she said. "And it will make you less conspicuous among us."

"Will it hurt?"

She grinned at him. "Yes."

"And you got caught going up the gangplank to her ship?" she said. "You didn't think that _maybe _she was the one who gave you away?"

He shook his head. "We got to know each other pretty well during that game."

"You know I'll be able to tell if you've slept with her when we get on the ship," she said. "There's this look your women have..."

"I never slept with her. Didn't have time for one thing. Also, I get the feeling she would have eaten me alive if I'd tried."

"Instead she poked a hole in you."

"That sounded incredibly dirty."

She grabbed his head and attacked his earring with her lips again, making him groan. "It was meant to."


	2. First Encounters

You want to know about the other Templars who've caught me? Well, why not? It'll give us something to pass the time before your colleagues get here in any case.

... Let me see. First attempt was Ser Nigel. I'd give him... a three. I mean, all he had to do was notice that Templar armour doesn't fit sixteen year old mages - especially when they haven't reached their full height yet. I probably should have relieved one of the girl templars of their armour rather than going for Ser Hubert's old stuff - that man was enormous... Would have been more fun too.

No need to look like that. You _know _some of your friends at the Tower are less than enthusiastic about that whole vow of celibacy thing. Pity you aren't among them.

Well I _assumed _you were serious about it any way. You're saying you... oh. You want to know about the others? But this conversation is _so _much more interesting.

Huh. If you insist. How could I refuse such a beautiful woman?

We can skip a few - the one where I tried to jump out the window - well that was a concerted effort. I think five Templars held the canvass for me to jump on. I tried to aim for Greagior's head but it's surprisingly hard to direct yourself when you're falling down the side of a tower.

So let's see... the next one would have been... Ser Yurick. Four and a half I suppose. Again, it wasn't as though I was at my best. Asking for ale at the Spoiled Princess was probably not a good idea, especially when there are off duty Templars there all the time. Still, he DID cleanse me faster than any other Templar had managed before, so I'll rate him higher than some.

Then there was Ser Aldric. Six. I hadn't mastered pants by that stage. And I was stupid to go to Denerim, everyone told me that. Well, they told me that once I got back to the Tower any way. It's just that they don't _tell _you where the best place to go is when you're fleeing the country. Or if they do it's never in an obvious way. Aldric was clever though - he watched me at the tavern when I was cautious - only got me on the way up the gangplank to the ship, in a crowded area where I couldn't risk using any area affect spells. He was a cautious one, Aldric. I suppose there was a reason he only had one ear...

And then, dear lady, there was you. I won't belittle your efforts by mentioning you in company with those others - they were nothing compared to your dedication - your drive and zeal... let alone your... other attributes.

I'm still a bit in awe of you, in fact. To catch me, in the wilderness - between towns, with nothing but my phylactery and your wits. Even Aldric used other people to track me - relied on information from other sources. You - no. Just your Maker given talents and the training of the Chantry. I must salute you.

Of course, I can't help but imagine what it must have been like for you. Once you (rightly) abandoned your incompetent companions and plunged into the depths of the forest, alone. Cold. Shivering. Not knowing if I was just behind you ready to suck out your blood and use it for some nefarious purpose... you _do _know, by the way, that I'm not a blood mage? Calling me malificar the way you did wounded me - cut me straight to the heart...

I can see how you must have looked just before you caught me. The moon would have shone on your auburn hair - oh yes - in my mind you never wear that pesky helm - why spoil such a magnificent view? Also I imagine it interferes with your hearing - you wouldn't want an apostate to creep up behind you unawares - any way - the moon, glinting off those magnificent tresses, just bringing out the blue of your eyes. Such determination. Focused on me... It makes me warm just thinking about it.

Mmm? Well.. how far behind did you say they were? I'm certain if you wanted to we could...

Well, indeed. It wouldn't be the first time I used restraints...

...It _would _be the first time they were used on me though.

...My lady, you make getting caught almost worthwhile.


	3. I Hate You

_I hate you._

He'd always been able to tell when someone was looking at him. Probably a side effect of the magic. But these eyes were _boring _into the back of his head. He leaned back in his chair, ignoring the disapproving look from the senior enchanter teaching the class - really, he _knew _all this already, what was the _point..._ but his posture meant he could see in the window a reflection of two people who had come into the classroom. Wynne - the pompous old bitch who taught healing (nowhere near as well as... _she _had taught him though) and someone else.

A tall man. Traces of brown - or dark blond in the mostly grey hair. Shadowed eyes. Impressive beard. He was dressed in what at first looked like senior enchanter robes, but they had subtle differences and Anders suddenly wondered if he was finally seeing the famous first enchanter.

_Off galavanting in the outside world for two months, _he thought bitterly, _while the rest of us get to stay locked up playing at scholarship when we could be out there _doing _something..._

He turned around to get a better look, even less inclined than usual to care that Enchanter Tobin would get angry with him and probably make him.. oh, write an essay or something as punishment. The older man fixed him with a brown stare that held that look he'd gotten used to over the past few weeks. That look of _what can you do. _Or more precisely _what can I use you for. _They all had it, the seniors. They all looked at the apprentices as though they were pieces of meat - or coin. _What can we get out of them? How much will they make us? How long can we use them?_

He'd been stupidly hopeful, on the trip. He'd thought that circle mages might have been more like his mother - respect the power, use it for good. But some of them didn't even _want _their magic.

He hated them. And he hated _him _most of all, he supposed. He wondered if he even knew what the Templars did when they found their precious little apprentices. He wondered if he knew they let innocent people _die _by interfering in things they didn't even understand.

Two days later he was called into the First Enchanter's office.

"Anders," the man said, not even looking up from his papers. "Take a seat."

Anders crossed his arms over his chest and did his best I'm-a-sullen-fifteen-year-old stare. His stepfather had always laughed at that one. He doubted this man had ever laughed a day in his life. Irving looked up at him and sighed.

"Very well, if it pleases you to stand."

"You wanted to see me, First Enchanter," he said.

"The senior enchanters tell me that you're surprisingly well versed in magic already," he said. "They suspect you've been trained."

"What if I have?"

"The Templars want to know by whom."

Anders felt all the anger he'd been bottling up - and he hadn't even realised he'd been bottling it, truly, he honestly thought he'd been letting it go whenever he needed to - boil up to the surface in a rush.

"Well they're not going to find out," he said. "Do you think I'd betray another mage - _any _mage - to live in this arsehole of a place?"

The First enchanter winced at his language, but his eyes didn't change. "Anders, you know the Templars are going to search your hometown and its surrounds _very thoroughly _for whoever taught you. Chances are they'll find them in any case."

_Not if they're already dead, _he thought, the lance of pain that shot through him almost forcing tears from his eyes. "If I was taught by someone smart enough to avoid them this long, don't you think they'll know that too?" he said. "You're not going to make me betray them. No matter what you say."

The First Enchanter's eyes flashed with what Anders' thought was anger. "You won't tell us?"

He clamped his mouth shut and shook his head firmly.

Irving let out another large sigh. "Well then, we're not torturers," _aren't you? _Anders thought, "so we'll let it rest for now. Hopefully eventually you'll understand it's for their own good. How are you settling in, otherwise?"

Anders blinked. "Settling in?"

"Yes, how are you finding things? Are you comfortable? Are you learning well?"

Anders opened his mouth in frank astonishment. How on _Thedas _could that man even _ask the question _of him?

"You truly want to know how I'm _settling in?" _he said. "Are you completely and _utterly _stupid?"

The older mage looked up and fixed Anders with a stare that was part icy and part... something totally undefinable. "I hope you find it in your heart to learn what you can from us, Anders," he said, as though Anders had said nothing at all, as though his words might as well have sunk into the ocean.

"Well, that's good for you, I suppose," Anders replied. "I'm told hope springs eternal."

"You may go."

He turned on his heel and left before he could let his mouth say anything that might actually get him into some trouble.

_Maker's breath, _he thought. _I truly hate that man._


	4. The Highest Form of Flattery

_This is set in the Caged universe rather than my usual Of Wardens and Mages stuff. _

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The first time he saw Anders he thought he was... attractive, actually. Not that a Harrowed mage who was first in his class as a spirit healer - and presumably, interested in _girls _according to rumour (or according to Jowan, who had actually walked in on some pretty convincing evidence of that fact in a dark library corner one evening) would ever look twice at an elf who failed at the most basic healing skills.

The first time he heard about the escape attempts - or the escape successes - the man actually got out after all - the admiration turned into a full blown crush. The man was resourceful, powerful and _made the Templars crazy. _What was there not to like?

The first time he saw him defeated Alim had to stop himself from intervening. It was after the sixth attempt, the whispers were saying he'd got as far as Denerim before the Templars caught up with him. They hadn't been gentle. Alim was talking to Cullen in the entrance hall when the main doors opened. They had him trussed up between two of the least friendly Templars out there. He was stripped to the waist, bound and limp, soft blond strands of his hair escaping around his face. When Greagior and Irving arrived to see to him Anders threw up on their boots.

Alim couldn't help smiling at that, before Cullen ushered him out. The kind hearted Templar looked disturbed and Alim knew why he was never sent out to collect the Circle's frequent strays. He patted the man's steel covered shoulder. "Don't worry," he said. "Anders' is all right. He's a healer, remember?"

Cullen had nodded, and flushed - embarrassed to be caught out caring when he should have been pleased that the man was back where he'd been taught all mages belonged.

_Poor Cullen, _Alim had thought. _One day this place is going to break him._

The first time Alim talked to Zevran he couldn't help remembering his Tower crush - the two of them were similar in many ways, although Zevran had so many hard edges - edges that Alim was twitching to smooth - to touch and mould.

He had plenty of opportunity to do that during the Blight.

Perhaps, if the Templars and Irving had finally managed to keep Anders in the Tower - perhaps the blond mage would grow some of those same edges.

One evening, in their now shared tent, Zevran offered to pierce his ear for him. The first touch of the needle made Alim wince, and Zevran laughed that the mighty warden could be so scared of a small injury. Alim picked the right ear, without knowing exactly why.

At the Circle, he looked for him. He knew it was stupid, and possibly dangerous, but he turned over the corpse of every mage they came to, checking. Sometimes the corpses were those of his friends. Anders wasn't one of them.

He didn't have the courage to ask Irving what had become of him.

At Amaranthine, the first thing he thought was _I don't remember him being that tall. _His fingers drifted to Zev's earring, then to the black ponytail at the back of his head. _Duncan's _hairstyle, he'd thought when he first decided it was the most practical way to deal with the dark strands. Mhairi was looking at the two of them curiously while the damn man _flirted _with her - obviously his preferences hadn't changed in the years since Alim had left. Alim could pretend it was a coincidence that they looked like dark and light versions of each other, but the fact that they were both, apparently, wearing the same cologne... well, you could only stretch coincidence so far.

How depressing, to find your efforts at being an individual were all in vain.

He knew what the first thing Zev would say if he was here. Well, the _second _thing he'd say, anyway. Damn he missed the man. Not only because if _he _was here there was no way Anders would have that blasted smirk plastered over his face.

It was the first time he'd blushed in a very, very long time.


	5. The Third Scent

_Written for the LJ Andraste's Knickerweasels Six Senses prompt - I had SMELL. Any Anders fans who want to check out Anders related fanfic and stuff should pay it a visit - it's growing! I've said before, and I'll say it again. Alistair fangirls are just Anders fangirls in their larval form :)._

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The Tower smelt of books. And lyrium, and the slightly acrid hint of fear - all of which got much, much stronger when a Templar got too close, and mixed with sweat and steel. It took him a long time to recognise the third scent - fear was something he hadn't really known before being captured, not the true, bone wrenching _adult_ fear these men and women showed whenever a mage so much as looked in their direction. That it had a smell - that was a surprise for him. That the people who were his captors were the ones who were the most frightened - that made him thoughtful.

He got to know that smell too well. It made him slightly queasy, to the point where, when he was dragged back to the Tower after his sixth escape attempt - stripped to the waist and shackled, thrown on the floor in front of Greagior and Irving who looked at him like a piece of meat, he didn't even attempt to control the nausea and felt obscurely satisfied to see the contents of his stomach empty over their boots.

It hadn't helped that the Templars had kicked him in the stomach only moments before, but Anders knew it was the smell that had forced him over the edge.

He sometimes wondered if the vomit was what made Irving agree to the year in solitary. It was cruel and unusual, even by Tower standards. Not to mention dangerous. Putting a mage alone with nothing but their dreams to accompany them was tantamount to hanging a sign around their neck saying "possess me!". Anders wondered if that's what they wanted. They couldn't tranquil him, or execute him for being malificar, why not toss him in a cell and let him become an abomination?

The cell had a cycle of smells. Food and human waste and clean stone when they washed it out. He could tell what time of day it was by sniffing. The only comforting smell was the slight musk of Mr Wiggums. He was almost sorry when they cleaned the cell because the smell was washed away.

Smell was what saved him in the Fade.

He was right. After the seventh month of no one to talk to his dreams were the only place he felt sane. It was all too easy to get lost in them, to believe the lies they told. As a mage in the Tower the biggest lesson he'd been given was how to protect himself from demons, how to recognise temptation and avoid it. But the Harrowing existed for a reason - there were some mages who never learned the lesson well enough.

He'd always felt... not disdainful exactly - that would imply he didn't pity them - more... superior to those who failed their Harrowing. To him it had seemed perfectly obvious where the trap lay. But when the desire demon came to him, in the form of his stepfather, offering freedom, company, family - all the things that had been ripped away from him, months and months of hearing nothing but the mewling of Mr Wiggums and the sound of his own voice had worn away his sense of reality. The lessons meant less and less. When he offered _forgiveness.. _well, that was when those lessons almost meant nothing at all.

The warmth of his stepfather's embrace was real - the feel of his rough cheek, the rumble of his deep voice as he laughed at his wayward son - all of these things combined would have been enough to convince him that this was real save for one thing.

The man_ smelt _of nothing. His stepfather had always smelled like elfroot and woodsmoke and the lavender his mother used to wash their clothes. Since he came to the tower the merest hint of elfroot and woodsmoke together could sweep him in memories that threatened tears when he was younger and angry sparks of lightning as he got older.

But the fade smelt of nothing but lyrium. He pulled back. For a moment, he considered it - he could ignore that it was a false offer. But he'd passed his Harrowing - he had his pride. They weren't going to break him, not this way.

There were only five more months to go, after all.


	6. All's Fair in Love and War

**All's Fair in Love and War**

He certainly hadn't expected that to happen. He scrambled backwards until he was against the cliff wall, taking catalogue of his wounds, which were more severe than he liked, considering his distinct lack of manner. And these were his best robes. He tutted, pulling his pack around to his front. Stupid of him, not to bring Pounce - Pounce would have healed him up in no time. But stupid of bandits, to attack him, even after they saw his warden robes and his staff - it wasn't as though he wasn't the most well known mage in Amaranthine. Bandits usually KNEW to avoid him.

These ones had been a bit more desperate, he supposed. And now... well, desperate was _one _way of describing them. He winced a little as he watched, pulling out a lyrium potion and drinking it. _They _weren't going to bother him, as long as he stayed relatively out of sight.

Neria had taught him the spell, yes, and she'd used it on him more than once... and oh was he grateful that she had - if for whatever reason they were separated for more than a day he found himself tempted to cast it on _himself. _But he hadn't ever cast it on anyone else. No indeed. It was a personal thing - between him and his lover. They hadn't talked about it with anyone else and Anders _knew _that it wasn't _common _knowledge in the Tower...

He'd joked with her - about combining Miasma and Mass Rejuvenation, but she could never master the top level creation spells and his miasma had always been sub-standard - entropy and healing just didn't go well together. He must have called on reserves he didn't know he had, to manage that spell combination. It probably had something to do with his lyrium addled senses - at a point in the battle when he was genuinely afraid of being overwhelmed his mind had drifted to Neria and the last time they had made love and his magic had just...

...spilled out.

They were moaning now, and sweating, and most of the armour had come off and truly if anyone else came to this part of the forest they'd think he was the leader of some sex-witch sect. He'd never seen two men do _that _before. He'd certainly never seen four men and three women do _that..._

The lyrium potion took effect and Anders gradually stopped the bleeding from the wound on his thigh, careful not to deplete his mana enough to lose his grip on miasma. He was going to have to recast rejuvenation soon as well. Although he wondered if they were so far gone now that the didn't _need _the spells. It would take a little longer to get to a point where he could walk, though, so he recast just to make sure.

The extra chorus of moans as he released the spell almost made him blush. Of course, he _could _have firestormed them instead - but it seemed such a shame to interrupt...

Two weeks later when he was back in Amaranthine with Neria at the Crown and Lion he noticed a man looking at him curiously from another table. The man was shabbily dressed, cradling a large tankard of ale. Neria nudged him in the ribs.

"Who's that? Friend of yours?"

He looked at the man over his goblet of Antivan red and frowned. He _did _look familiar. "I'm not sure," Anders said. The man's stare bored into him but Anders couldn't place it. Finally, the stranger approached their table. Anders gave him a friendly smile.

"Can I help you, friend?"

"You're the warden mages, right?" he said, gruffly. They nodded. "Were you by any chance on the road in the Wending Wood, two weeks ago? Attacked by... " he coughed, a little embarrassed, "attacked by bandits?"

Anders cocked an eyebrow and tried to imagine the man naked. Yup... _now _he knew where he knew him. He let out a chuckle. "I bet that's the last time _you'll _be attacking helpless mages in the woods, eh?" he said.

The man blushed. "Well.. yes," he said. "But... uh... I was wondering..."

"Yes?"

"Is there any way you can come to my place and do that again? Only the wife was wondering..."

Anders nearly choked on his wine.

He certainly hadn't expected _that _to happen.


	7. When the Earth Moves

He pushed his hair out of his eyes, wet with sweat and blood and Maker-knew-what-else and reached for another lyrium potion. Sigrun's breath was coming fast and short and he knew if he didn't stop the bleeding in her lungs she would drown. Andraste curse her for making him attend to every one else in the entire keep before she'd let him even approach her to find out how she'd been injured. It had only been because she'd collapsed that he'd been able to get close enough to treat her.

Neria was safely tucked up in their room, asleep, Maker willing she'd recover fully in a few hours. Nate and Oghren were both unconscious but mostly healed - Armand and Branwen were dealing with them. Garic and Gabrielle were absent in the deep roads. Varel was with his wife in Amaranthine.

"Earthquakes," Anders muttered under his breath as he worked. "Why didn't we plan for _earthquakes." _He shuddered to think of what might have happened to Garic and Gabrielle in the Deep Roads and made a mental note to send a team down to check if there had been any cave ins in the area they'd been scouting.

It was that thought that brought his other situation home to him. _All _of the senior wardens were incapacitated or absent. He was the only one conscious who'd been a warden longer than six months.

He was, technically, in charge.

"Stupid dwarf," he muttered as he worked at clearing the fluid out of Sigrun's lungs. "Stoicism is _Nathaniel's _trait. You should have _told _me you were about to pass out and I would have stopped it. Do you have any idea what you've done to me?"

It seemed the others in the keep were coming to the same realisation. Armand was the first to approach him. He and the elf had never really gotten along, but Anders respected his healing ability and had a grudging understanding of _why_ the elf had never liked him.

"There are wounded all over the place," Armand said. "We've managed to get to the most serious cases, we _think _but.."

"Set up a hospital in the main hall," Anders said. "Don't try to move them into the infirmary - there are enough people in there already and the main hall is easier to get to."

Armand nodded firmly and left, obviously glad to have a job to do. Anders swallowed, finishing his healing spell and activating Combat Magic to make it easier to carry Sigrun to where they would set up the makeshift hospital.

Armand had got there before him and was directing servants to bring linens and hot water. Branwen, he was relieved to notice, was also there, working on the injured. He truly didn't have enough healing magic left to help them, having poured most of it into his fellow senior wardens. He wished, now, that he hadn't been so liberal with the sedative side of it. He'd give a lot to see an awake Nathaniel right now.

When Sigrun was comfortably settled Anders stood to find at least three wardens waiting to talk to him. He ran his hand through his hair, which had come loose from its tie, and heaved a sigh.

"Yes?"

"Ser Anders," he didn't even know who the warden was, but she looked about twelve years old. Maker knew what skills she had, Anders knew she wasn't a mage but he couldn't imagine such a tiny girl stabbing darkspawn for a living. "The deep roads entrance has been blocked by rubble again. Dworkin's insisting he can clear it.."

"No and no," Anders said quickly. "The _last _thing we need is more vibrations running through the keep. Get back to him and tell him he does _not _have the Commander's permission to do _anything." _The girl nodded and turned to go. The second warden was Maric - ambitiously named by his parents - an excellent sword and shield man. "What is it man?"

"The ballistas on the north wall have been damaged by falling masonry..."

... and so it began. The list of problems that had to be dealt with seemed to get longer as the night wore on. Anders was frazzled and harried and he _smelt bad _and his eyes hurt and all he wanted was to curl up in a bath with a book but there was no _water _because the well had been choked with dust and had to be cleared...

A few hours past midnight he managed to make it back to the main hall. Despite not having sat in ten hours, his mana had replenished enough so that he could use some healing magic again and it was a palpable relief to sink down next to Sigrun's bedroll and concentrate on something he _knew _rather than delegating the endless run of tasks that seemed to need to be done.

Sigrun stirred in her sleep as he attended her, but despite her injuries showing a lot of improvement, Anders didn't give into the temptation to wake her up. He knew if he did she'd just tire herself out, and one thing he _did _intend to take away from this experience was a possible collection of _I owe you, Anders _that could conceivably keep him on light duties until the end of the year.

He hadn't realised that he'd nodded off until he felt a gentle hand on his shoulder. He looked up into the twinkling dark eyes of Neria, who was looking _thank the maker _whole and beautiful and everything he'd ever wanted in a woman. Upright, competent and _used to command _notwithstanding.

"I love you," he said.

She laughed.


	8. Unfair Advantages

"Will you hold still!" his mother had all but forced him into the chair in front of her dresser and was waving the scissors around in a way that he didn't consider healthy AT ALL.

"Mama, I don't _want _to cut my hair," he said, ducking as she tried to position his head.

"Don't be stupid, Anders, it's getting in your eyes, you can barely see at all."

He blew a strand away and scowled into the mirror. "I so can," he said. "I can see perfectly. And in a couple of months I'll be able to _tie it back.."_

"Anders, you've always had your hair short, why do you want it long _now?"_

He pressed his lips together and shook his head. He wasn't going to tell her - ever since he'd seen the warden Commander in Denerim he'd been thinking about growing his hair. He would never have the black hair and dark skin his father and the warden had, but he could at least have the hair style. And if he could ever find out how to do it, maybe he'd even be able to get an _earring..._

"Mama, can't I just grow it? It will be less trouble - we won't have to cut it as often and I..."

"You'll have to wash it," Joscelyn pointed out. He frowned and looked down at his tunic - covered in mud and dust and Maker knew what else from his forays in the streets of Highever. "And brush it. If you don't it will end up snarling and tangling."

He had a sudden image of himself, rugged and unshaven (not that he had to shave yet, but he was sure it would happen eventually) with matted hair. Oh, the girls would _love _it.

His mother was smirking at him in the mirror. She always could read his mind. "They won't love it, darling," she said. "Women prefer men who don't knock them unconscious with their smell."

He blinked. It hadn't occurred to him before that women might be _smelling _him. Gingerly he sniffed the top of his shirt, and grimaced. "Is that true mama?" he said.

She laughed. "Yes, Anders, it's very, _very _true."

"So.. if I promise to wash it and brush it can I let it grow?"

Joscelyn sighed and put the scissors on the dresser. "I'll hold you to the promise," she said. "The last thing I want to do is help you cut a live spider out of your hair if you don't..."

"What?"

She grinned at him. "I had to help my brother do that once," she said. "He'd left his hair for months and months, and a spider got caught..."

"Mama!" he said, spinning around on the chair. "You're joking!"

She shook her head, still smiling, and pinched one of his cheeks. He groaned and ducked away from her hand. "Absolute truth," she said. "You've been warned. So. You'd best go and have a bath!"

He grumbled, but did as she said.

A week later he was getting irritated at having to brush his hair out of his eyes every couple of seconds, but despite the shagginess he didn't want to give up. Strangely enough, he found he actually _enjoyed _being clean. Before, he'd not thought twice about wading through mud and dust, or rolling in the dirt. He was still willing to get dirty, naturally, but when he got home in the evenings he didn't need encouragement to draw water from the well and have a wash. The other boys thought he was weird and girly, but he didn't much care, especially when Portia - the acknowledged best looking girl in the town - accepted his invitation to go walking.

By that stage he could pull his hair back into a small knot at the back of his head. A few strands escaped but he convinced himself that they looked rakishly handsome rather than messy. Portia didn't seem to mind it _at all. _

"Back here," he whispered as they ran from the town square, away from where the other children were busy playing. The Peacock and Grouse was a respectable pub that kept its stables clean, so Anders knew they wouldn't have to avoid piles of horse dung if they ducked behind it. Portia - fifteen, lithe and tanned and ever so slightly taller than him, giggled as he pulled her close once they were in the shadows. He was nervous - for all they'd been spending a lot of time together recently he'd not managed to get her _quite _so alone before and he wasn't entirely certain what to do with himself now that she was encircled in his arms. But _oh _it was nice just to feel the curve of her waist and the splay of her hips under his hands. Portia was getting impatient, however, and one of her hands reached up to tangle in his hair, slipping behind the tie he had in place and gripping his skull, pulling his lips down to hers and delivering his very first kiss.

Years later, he could still remember the feel of her fingers and the press of her lips and he would smile. None of the other boys had ever listened to his advice about personal hygiene.

None of the other boys had ever managed to get quite so far with Portia, either.


	9. There's More Than One Way

**There's More Than One Way**

The official count would always be seven. That was the number of times he'd gotten off the island and into civilisation. But Anders knew that he had escaped many, many more times than that.

First, he'd escaped from their _expectations. _He was older, more educated, less traumatised, _more talented. _He answered questions with knowledge that came from _experience _rather than from books, He challenged Senior Enchanters who thought they knew better.

They didn't like it.

He escaped their indoctrination. _Magic is meant to serve man and never to rule over him. _He knew the real meaning of that phrase, even though the Chantry sisters who preached to him every week tried to make him think it made him _less_. It didn't make him any better or worse than any other person. What it did give him was a duty - a duty he couldn't fulfill if he was locked in a tower away from people he could be helping.

He escaped their control. With Mirabel, when he was sixteen - he'd disoriented three Templars to give them more privacy than she'd ever thought was possible in the Tower and with the cushions and blankets he'd managed to smuggle down there over the past week and the thick walls to muffle their mingled cries they _took _a slice of freedom that the Templars would _never _be able to take back. _That _particular way out of the Tower was one he made sure to take as often as was physically possible.

He escaped their melancholy. Humour had always been his answer to most problems. Calling a Templar a bucket head, flirting with Chantry sisters until they blushed, setting off ice traps on his fellow apprentices, _these _things made him feel alive, no matter the punishments, the stints locked away from the other apprentices, the removal of what few privileges he had.

He would tally up his little escapes every time they took him back. They wondered why he smiled, some of them. Some of them tried to wipe the smile away with kicks and blows, and mostly they succeeded, but the act of tallying was another little escape, one of thousands he would remember when the day he escaped for good finally came.

His optimism also knew no bounds.


	10. Grey Area

_This was written for a prompt on BSN that asked us to put Anders in a different era._

**Grey Area**

"Why the fuck did he give the order to land?" Anders screamed at the corporal as more and more wounded flooded into the makeshift tent. "Jesus bloody Christ, didn't he know it was the wrong beach?"

He was distracted by the moaning of a private whose leg had been blown off. Triage took over as the corporal shifted from foot to foot in nervousness. Anders clamped down on the leg with nothing but his hands - the supplies hadn't even had time to be set up before everything went to shit. Someone was going to get shot over this debacle, he thought to himself. Months of planning, sitting around in training camps and they can't even read a fucking map.

Shot for certain.

Of course, they wouldn't be. The generals were all career soldiers - they'd been in Aro or Tibet where the enemy were just out of the stone age. They weren't used to enemies with guns. Machine guns that could mow a man's leg off.

God help them, these were the men in charge.

"How many of the division are out there?" Anders asked the corporal.

"Colonel Duncan said they're all here, sir," the corporal said. "They were in the first charge."

Anders' heart gave a skip and he forced himself to concentrate on the task at hand. All of them. That left him, he supposed. He wasn't going to see any of his unit again unless they came in on a stretcher and chances are they'd be missing bits of themselves when they did.

"Fuck," he said. Not only was his division decimated but he'd lost seventeen of his staff while they were still on the boats. They were running the field ambulance with three men. And the wounded just kept coming.

He recognised the kid, despite the blood that dirtied his red-blonde hair. He wasn't a triage case, so they left him in the corner of the tent, bleeding quietly. Duncan's protege - the Field Marshal's brother.

Half-brother, Anders reminded himself. Anders was inclined to hate the bastard (for bastard he was) considering their situation, but despite everything the kid managed to make life a bit easier for the wounded surrounding him, cracking jokes in that stupid accent - distracting the dying. And it was nice to know not all of the unit were killed in that charge.

When the battle died down Anders found time to go to him. He handed him a canteen and knelt to see to his arm. The boy hadn't been lucky enough to score an injury that would keep him from the fighting, but this didn't seem to bother him as much as it was bothering some of the brighter lads. The ones that were going to have to go back out there.

"I suppose you hate me," he said as Anders worked.

"Why would I do that?" his voice was rough, he hadn't had any water for hours. "You're such a charming pommy bastard."

"Ha bloody ha," the boy passed him back the canteen and Anders took the time to wet his mouth.

"Why'd your brother let you come with us, any way?" he asked.

The boy fixed him with a dark gaze. "My brother thought it was going to be a glorious victory for the Empire."

"Pity he didn't tell that to the Turks on that cliff."

"PIty he didn't listen to Duncan and Loghain."

"Pity none of his Generals can read a map."

They shared a laugh, pulling confused looks from his staff and the other patients.

"I'm Anders, by the way."

"Alistair."

"Yeah, mate. I know. This your first battle?"

The boy nodded, and Anders saw the fear in his eyes for the first time. Rough bloody luck, being landed with them here. He'd known there were poms with the boats, but he hadn't thought Duncan and Cailan would be letting the heir apparent swan around with the rest of the grunts, even if they did think this was a winnable battle.

"Don't worry, kid," he said, patting Alistair's uninjured arm.

Alistair raised an eyebrow. "We'll be ok?" he said.

Anders laughed. "Probably not. But look at it this way - if you're going to die, you'll do it so quick you won't even notice."

It was a lie, but at least the boy bought it. There were so many different ways to die in battle.

He would take a bet that they were going to see most of them.


	11. Pants For a Day

**Pants For a Day**

Fishy breath woke her. "Maker's arse, Pounce," she mumbled, turning her head to the side to try to avoid it. "Hasn't Anders trained you not to do that any more?" She blinked fuzzily, expecting to see the cat's nose directly in front of hers. It was his favourite way of waking her.

Instead she was presented with a very, very human face and a pair of vivid green eyes, both of which were attached to the head of a red-haired young man who was _significantly _lacking in clothing.

Neria shrieked and spun out of bed. "Anders!" she screamed at her lover, who had been soundly sleeping beside her. "Anders bloody well WAKE UP!"

He grunted and opened his eyes - took in the extra guest and shrieked almost as loudly as Neria had.

"Andraste's tits!" he swore, also jumping off the bed. "Is this some sort of joke of Zevran's?"

The man seemed unconcerned by their reactions, simply turned his head from each of them calmly. He was crouched on the bed on all fours - he'd been straddling Neria without touching her. Neria took a moment to truly take in his proportions - he was without a doubt, an extremely _fine _specimen of his species. Corded muscles lay over long and lean limbs and he was poised with extreme grace. Her eyes dipped downwards and she immediately felt a blush heat her face. He was an _extremely _fine specimen.

As though he could feel her gaze he moved, startlingly quickly, so he was lying on his back on the bed, his arms behind his head and a smile curving his lips. A soft sound escaped him as he gazed at the two of them.

Neria only just realised that they were as little dressed as the stranger and scrabbled to her dresser to pull out some robes. Anders seemed to have had the same thought, because he was doing the same on the other side of the room.

"Who are you?" she asked. "How did you get in here? We lock the door at night!"

The man's lips parted and a tongue darted out, wetting his lips in a way that seemed strangely familiar. "Fish," he said distinctly. There was something primally sexual about the way he pronounced that single word and Neria found herself gasping for breath.

"What?" Anders said. The man looked at Anders.

"Want fish," he said.

Anders found Neria's eyes. He looked as puzzled as she felt.

"Why don't we go with clothes first," Neria said. Anders nodded and turned back to his dresser, pulling out some regular clothing. He tossed a shirt to the man on the bed, who didn't move. The shirt hit his chest and he simply looked down at it, a slightly puzzled expression marring his perfect brow.

"Fish?" he said again. Neria looked back at Anders who's mouth was open in surprise and confusion.

"What is this obsession with fish?" he asked. "You sound like a human version of Pounce..." Anders trailed off, running his eyes over the ginger hair, the green eyes, the feline grace of the reclining man. "...Neria...?" he looked up at her and she looked back at him.

Neria took a tentative step towards the bed. "Pounce?" she asked softly. The man's head turned to her and his enormous green eyes blinked. Again, the soft smile spread over his lips.

"Mistress?" he said.

"Maker's breath," Anders breathed. "How is this possible?"

Neria reached out her hand, automatically thinking to stroke the man's head, but stopped her hand halfway there. Fragments of her dream from the night before started to come back to her. She'd been working hard lately, on her shapeshifting. Spending a lot of time as a cat, and a hawk - prowling the halls. After the business in Orlais she was even more determined to be the best she could be at it.

But last night she'd been dreaming of the transformation process.

_Cats have an affinity for the fade..._

"I think it might be my fault," she said softly. She reached out with her senses and probed, feeling the familiar touches of her own magic on the figure in the bed. "Yes, it's my fault. Oh, Anders, I'm so sorry!"

"Shouldn't you be apologising to Pounce?" Anders said. "It's not like _I've _been transformed into an.. extremely well endowed man."

"Well, he doesn't exactly look upset about it," she said.

"Master?" Pounce turned his head to Anders. "Fish?"

Anders blinked. "Now, that's just _weird."_

"I could probably reverse it," Neria said.

"Without hurting him?"

"Ah... "

"What happens if you don't reverse it?"

She shrugged. "Eventually the transformation should wear off," she said. "You remember - in Orlais I reverted back to human after about a day."

"Yes, and thank goodness you did. So you think the same thing will happen to Pounce?"

"I don't see why not."

Anders shrugged. "Well. I suppose we can let him be human for a _day._ But we'll have to get him to wear some pants first. I'm not letting him out like _that."_

"Oh, I don't know..." Neria started.

"If Zevran got a look he'd make you keep him like that forever. I do _not _want our Commander and that elf having their way with my _cat."_

Pounce blinked again. He'd picked up the shirt and was rubbing his nose on it. "Smells like master," he purred.

Neria looked at Anders again. "Right," she said. "Pants."

Getting him dressed was more difficult than they thought it would be. If either of them accidentally touched him he would rub against their hands. _Cat, _she had to keep reminding herself, even though the skin was smooth and firm and gave off _far _too much heat. _He's a cat Neria. A CAT. _At one stage the man butted his face against Anders' and let out a sound that was probably meant to be a purr but ended up sounding like...

... well Neria had never seen Anders blush _that _red.

"Pounce!" Anders squawked, stepping back from lacing up the pants they'd finally managed to get on him. The former cat blinked at him, his face blank.

"Fish," he said again.

"Shoes?" Anders looked at Neria. She shook her head.

"Can you imagine how hard it will be to get them on him? Besides, we're not taking him outside, just down to the kitchen."

"Fine. Let's go."

Pounce seemed quite happy to follow them, the promise of fish seemed to keep his interest and, Neria thought, he always followed Anders any way. He kept looking back at her and grinning - making sure she was following them, she supposed. He did always seem happier when the two of them stuck close together.

Keeping track of his family, she guessed.

Pounce got more and more excited the closer he got to the kitchen. He weaved around the two of them, rubbing against them both in ways that were extremely distracting. Neria could _see _Anders losing patience. "Personal space Pounce!" he cried eventually, after Pounce had stopped right in front of him. Neria couldn't see exactly what had triggered the outburst, but she guessed Pounce had been rubbing against things he shouldn't.

"Give him a break, Anders," Neria said, and she couldn't help smiling. "He's only doing exactly what he would be doing if he was normal."

"Yes. I know. Don't remind me. Because now every time he does it as a _cat _I'm going to be traumatised."

"A cat?" a smooth voice greeted them. They were in the kitchen courtyard - amongst the scraps and detritus that came from feeding so many wardens.

"Oh, Andraste's _tits,"_ Anders breathed as Zevran stepped out of the shadows. Pounce turned to the new arrival and Neria could see a feral light kindle in the green eyes.

Normally, Zevran and Pounce got along just fine. The cat would accept food from him, and although he wouldn't suffer to be stroked by the elf, that wasn't unusual. Out of all the wardens only Neria and Oghren had _that _privilege. But something had changed.

"Oh, _miei cari amici," _Zevran breathed, his amber gaze traveling up and down Pounce's form like a caress. "What _have _you found?"

Pounce had moved towards Zevran and was circling him. Neria had seen Pounce do this as a cat with new toms - it was bizarre to see it transferred into the human form. Anders looked at her with panic in his eyes. They both knew Zevran well enough to know that he wasn't _threatening _Pounce - the furthest thing from it in fact - but it was obvious that Pounce didn't see the elf's interest in the same light.

Zevran was matching Pounce's moves and Neria had a moment to admire the way they _both _moved - smooth and sleek and oozing competence. She could see perfectly well why Sigrun was so taken with the former assassin.

"I really, really wouldn't, Zevran," Anders said.

"Wouldn't what, my handsome mage?" Zevran said, never taking his eyes from Pounce.

"He doesn't swing that way, I'm afraid," Anders continued, and there was a slight smirk in his tone now. Neria wondered what he was thinking.

"Surely you should let the man decide for _himself_, Anders," Zevran said.

"What about Sigrun?" Neria said.

"I have no doubt the delectable commander would be just as taken with your friend as I am," Zevran said. "I had no intention of keeping him to _myself."_

Pounce opened his mouth in a snarl. "Threat," he growled. "Fight."

Zevran raised an eyebrow. "You wish to fight me?" he said, then tutted. "Well, not precisely what I had in mind..."

"Zevran, it's _Pounce," _Anders said.

Zevran stopped and turned to look at Anders in surprise. "What?"

Pounce moved so quickly she almost didn't see him, but Zevran was suddenly face down in the muck of the courtyard with the former cat on his back. Pounce didn't seem at all confused by his lack of claws or sharp teeth, instead he had the assassins hair firmly grasped in one hand, pulling Zevran's face up towards his own.

"Give," the cat growled.

"My dear man, I would gladly, but I do not know what you wish..." Pounce jerked the elf's head back even further and Neria saw him flinch.

"Give. In."

"I think he means yield, Zev," Anders said, and there was a tinge of worry in his voice.

"I must confess to being a little confused..." Zevran said. "In a _good _way, I am sure, but..."

Pounce bared his teeth and the sound he was emitting was chilling. "Zevran, I strongly suggest you do as he asks," Anders said. "There's a _reason _why there are no other tomcats at the Vigil."

"Are you not this cat's _master _Anders?" Zevran asked, panting slightly now.

"Even Anders never gets in the middle when Pounce thinks his dominance is threatened, Zev," Neria said.

"Oh, very well," Zevran said, and went limp, all struggle leaking out of him. "I yield to you, Ser-Pounce-A-Lot. I give in."

The cat grinned and released Zevran's head, leaping backwards gracefully. The Antivan delicately got to his feet, brushing himself down. When he was satisfied with his appearance he looked at the two mages, then at Pounce, and sighed lustily.

"How long will he be thus?" Zevran asked.

"Just for the day," Neria said hastily.

"Pity," he said, eyeing Pounce again. The cat hissed.

Once the assassin had left, Pounce smiled and rushed to Anders, rubbing his face in the mage's chest and letting loose a purr. "Pounce _wins," _he said. "Master pleased?"

Anders lifted his hands hesitantly, then brought them down on the cat's shoulders before awkwardly patting him on the head. "Yes, Pounce. I'm very, very pleased with you. Now..."

Pounce looked up at Anders, his face and eyes full of adoration. "Fish?"

Anders sighed. "All right, Pounce. Fish."

Neria chuckled as she watched the two men enter the kitchen. It was going to be an _interesting _day.


	12. Promises

**Promises**

The face was too distinctive to be mistaken. He stopped dead in the doorway, feeling Neria run into his back comically. Usually he would have a witty comment to make at her clumsiness but this time he twisted around and took her by the shoulders. "How's about we go to the Gull and Wrass instead," he said.

"What?" she said. "Are you letting Pounce choose our dinner destinations now? That place reeks of fish," she pushed past him and towards their normal table. "Anyway, I told you I wanted lamb pie and The Crown is the only place that does it."

It was too late, any way. She'd looked up as soon as they entered - Anders had time to curse the fact that he walked around with an enormous stick and a sword on his back these days. He was a little difficult to miss.

She didn't approach them right away and Anders pretended he hadn't noticed her (not that she'd believe him if he said that) and Neria was pestering him about being strange.

"What's eating you?" she asked him. "You look like you're in a room full of templars."

"Not Templars," her voice interrupted. "Just _old friends."_

Anders started and bit his lip. "Namaya," he said, not looking up. "What a surprise."

"You know, I debated whether I'd come over here," she said. Neria was looking at Anders with a hard expression on her face and he started sifting through his list of excuses... then he remembered this was _Neria _and that was _Namaya _and it had been _years..._

_...since she betrayed you to the Templars._

_Oh, the complex layers of guilt here, _he thought. _It would take a genius to work _this _one out._

"As hard as you debated whether or not to sell me out?" he replied, finding the courage to look her in the eye. "I don't imagine _that _took much convincing."

"Huh. As if I didn't have perfectly good reasons to see you flayed alive, Anders," Namaya said. "But I _didn't _sell you out. The information I got was bad, that's all. It happens."

"Not to you."

_"Yes,_ to me. To everyone now and then. Not that I lost any sleep over it. After all, didn't you kill them? The Templars who found you?"

He pursed his lips. "Why _did _you come over here then?" he asked finally. "It's not as though we have much to discuss these days."

"I thought you should know. Maker knows why. But Geoffrey's dead."

He winced. "I'm sorry," he said.

She laughed, a bitter sound. "Well, this time it's _not _your fault."

"Did you come all the way here just to tell me that?"

"Yes."

He looked up at her, the sharp lines of her face, the hardness in her eyes, the bitter twist of her mouth. He hadn't done all of that. He had done _some _of it, true, but not _all _of it.

"Thank you," he said.

She turned on her heel and left.

Neria had her arms folded across her chest. "You know, by now I would have thought you'd told me everything from your past that had a chance of surprising me."

He chuckled. "Really, my love," he said. "Where would be the fun in that?"

_"She _seemed to be anything but fun."

He sighed. "She was, once. Namaya. Helped me out when I was trying to find my phylactery after the Blight."

"Ah, that was when Rylock..."

He nodded. She waited.

_Ah well, _he thought after a moment. _Looks like I'll have to tell her..._

"Her payment was healing for her brother."

"Geoffrey?"

He nodded. "I healed him as best I could, but he had the growth disease - the same one that killed my mother. She believed me when I told her that I couldn't heal it completely, even though I'd promised her I could."

"You said she sold you out?"

"I thought she had," he took a long drink of his ale. "I didn't really care. I could understand why she would have done. But if she didn't.." he shrugged. "It's all the same. Geoffrey's dead now. I probably bought him a couple of extra years of life, not that they were good ones."

"She seems so bitter..."

"The disease can attack the mind," Anders said. "By the time I got to him there'd already been damage done. He.. wasn't the same ever again. And Namaya had to look after him."

Neria looked solemn. "You've healed that disease before," she said.

"I have. But it all depends on when you get to it. Geoffrey was too far gone. I could reduce the growth but not get rid of it completely. I was stupid and over-confident and I told her I could fix him and I couldn't. End of story."

She put her hand over his. "I'm sorry," she said softly. He half-smiled at her and squeezed her hand back.

"At least it's over now," he said, then laughed. "When the Commander and I ran into her that first time I thought it was all over - Namaya was going to rat me out as the bastard I was. Instead she told me the information I wanted. Looks like I misjudged her."

"But you ended up in an ambush!"

"Namaya didn't know that."

"You're certain?"

"I am now."

They were interrupted by the arrival of pie. Anders savoured the feel of the flaky pastry against his tongue, thinking of all the things he had to look forward to.

"And here I was thinking she was your ex-girlfriend or something," Neria said finally.

He gave her a half grin over a fork full of pie.

"Oh, she _was."_


	13. The Art of Lying

The Art of Lying

"I was just talking to her!" To Portia's father, Benjamin Smith, the largest man in highever and handy with a hammer. Anders trembles in his boots but lifts his head and fixes the man with his most innocent gaze. He's brushed his hair and ironed his shirt and even cleaned his boots - the very picture of a neat and eligible teenager. He knows he looks several years younger than the man's daughter (he is) and he also knows Portia will sell him out as soon as look at him _despite _the heady and steamy moments they'd been stealing everywhere around the town for the past month. He has to make the man believe him or there is a very real chance he'll be flogged in the square for assault.

He has learned to be _very _good at lying. But he avoids Portia from then on. Sometimes it's better to sidestep danger.

"You're charms won't work on me, woman!" To the Warden Commander, Miranda Cousland, as she jokes about his claustrophobia in the deep roads. She has a way with her, of distracting him from his troubles. Distracting him from them, or beheading them, the way she had with Rylock and her cronies. It's incredibly sexy. Thinking about sex in the deep roads is far preferable to thinking about how dark it is. And heavy. And dark. Breasts and hips and night-dark hair and grey twinkling eyes... these are far, far preferable.

Although sometimes they make walking difficult.

"It's not the size that counts, Velanna." In this case, it _is_.

"Of course I don't mind." Through gritted teeth to Nathaniel Howe as he smoothly invites his sister to dinner in Amaranthine. His sister fixes him with her cheerful dark gaze, a slight smirk on her lips as she contemplates her half-brother. There is no way Maeve could know him that well - they've only been reunited recently. He grins at her, then at Nathaniel, trying with all his might to convey his thoughts to the dark haired rogue.

_If you touch her I'll freeze you solid._

Nathaniel simply raises an eyebrow.

"Nothing can tie me down." To Neria one morning after they return from Orlais, changed, certainly. Older, definitely. More free. She smiles that quirky little smile of hers and shakes her head. She can _always _tell when he's lying.

"You'll be all right." To his mother. To a dying warden, in the deep roads. To a child in the elven Alienage of Highever, wracked with fever. To an old carthorse, a wounded bird, a beloved, ancient, ginger cat.

To himself in the morning, imagining the mottled grey of corruption spreading across his skin, or worse, _hers_.

He's very, _very _good at telling that lie. It's a shame it's always the hardest to believe.


	14. Storm

_Set JUST after Of Wardens and Mages, so Neria and Anders have only been "together" for a few weeks. Written for Da Tent Party kink meme - so obviously, this is smutty people!_

_

* * *

_

It was the first time it had rained since she became a warden. The Tower was too far south for the kind of thunderstorms that hit Amaranthine - there just wasn't enough heat and they weren't close enough to the coast, but THIS storm was big even by Amaranthine standards. Sigrun told her privately as the clouds started to gather that it was the kind of weather that wrecked ships - she'd seen the ruins of one just after she became a warden.

The ferocity of nature still had the capacity to shock her, but she found it fascinating as well. She'd been unable to stay in their room once the lightning had hit, slipping out from under his grasp and pulling on her thin nightdress to creep down to the courtyard and up onto the battlements. The clouds were so thick that no moonlight or starlight could get through, and the only light came from the frequent flashes of lightning and the reflection of lamplight from the bottom of the clouds. Eerie, green light that made everything look like the fade. It was still, and heavy, and hot, and her nightgown was sticking to her breasts with sweat. She stood on the battlements and leant out just as the first drops of rain started to fall - heavy and fat and fresh. No one was nearby - the guard had all taken shelter against the oncoming downpour, and she reveled in the feeling of being alone - something she had never truly felt before.

The first few drops turned into a downpour and she was soaked to the skin, but the water was warm and she had no desire to go back inside. The sheer noise of the water coupled with the thunder and lightning made her feel safe for some reason - no one could see her or hear her. She threw her head back and laughed, closing her eyes and letting the water pour into her mouth.

A hand snaked around her waist from behind, pulling her back into the world. She recognised it - how could she not - and when she was pulled backwards to rest against a warm body she grinned. Actually, scratch _warm _for _unbelievably hot _and _unsurprisingly hard _in certain places.

"How long have you been there?" she asked. His breath tickled her ear as he leaned down to answer.

"Long enough to see how well a wet shirt suits you," he growled, sliding one wet hand up wet cloth to cup her wet breast and squeeze, long fingers moving over the nipple and tweaking until she gasped. "Truly, Neria, you are _unbelievably _sexy in the rain."

She tilted her head to look at him as his hands continued to roam. His hair was loose and dripping water into his darkened eyes, a smile playing over slightly parted lips.

"We are _outside, _Anders. In a _public place."_

"I know," he said, squeezing tighter. "Isn't it _hot?"_

She laughed and he spun her around, gripping her arms with his hands and bringing her up to his lips to kiss her, opened mouthed and passionate and everything she'd come to adore about him in the last few months. The rain was truly pelting down now. If Anders spoke she wouldn't be able to hear. Instead he walked her back into a tower wall and pressed himself against her. Through their thoroughly wet clothing she could feel his intoxicating heat and it almost _burned _in its intensity. She felt her own heat rising in response, such a different feeling from her time in the tower, when passion was fleeting and white hot - Anders had taught her what it was to draw out their pleasure, finding ways with magic and without.

_That_ gave her an idea and she moved her hands down to his firm backside, palms flat, and allowed her power to pulse out in waves as he kissed her - hot, cold, lightning, nature - elemental chaos on a small scale, never enough to tip into the realm of pain, but enough to keep Anders teetering on the edge.

As the spell began he groaned into her mouth and pulled her closer, the hard spike of his arousal pressing into her stomach and making her own breath hitch. He ground against her, his much larger body dwarfing her small one and sheltering her from the water that continued to pour around them, his hands pulling her nightshirt up so he could touch bare skin rather than wet cloth. She arched into his touch as he found her breasts and he broke the kiss to bury his head in her neck, hands moulding and tweaking. The spell spluttered and petered out as she lost concentration and she felt his lips at her neck quirk into a smile, acknowledging her loss of control. His tongue found the lobe of her ear and licked a quick stripe to its tip, letting out a hot breath that made her shiver.

She slid her hands around to his front as he continued to explore her body with his hands and gathered robes up around his waist - she had time to think that if anyone were to pass by now they'd have a magnificent view - before she firmly grasped him in one hand and began to stroke. He bucked his hips against her, leaning his forehead on the wet stone as she moved her hand. "Neria," he gasped, loudly enough to be heard over the wall of water. "Sweet Andraste, Neria... " she moved her hand faster and he let out a moan that was half shout before capturing her hand with his and pinning it to the wall above her head.

They were still for a moment, his eyes locked on hers, both gasping for breath. She struggled weakly against his grip on her wrist but he grinned, capturing her other hand and bringing it to the first so they were both gripped together. Her shirt was then lifted out of the way, as were his robes, and she allowed herself a deep breath of anticipation before he nudged his way into her folds, sliding home with a sigh of contentment that turned into a growl as she clenched her muscles around him. She lifted her legs around his waist and he slid deeper and the growl turned into a shout as he began to thrust into her. She matched it with cries of her own, sensations overcoming her to the point where his magic and hers seemed to be one and the same - the way it had in the fade - flaring around them, sparking and crackling even more than the lightning flashing across the black of the clouds.

"Yes, yes, Anders - _yes!" _she shouted, no longer caring if anyone might hear, almost wishing someone would see. His rough voice shouted her name as she felt him swell within her, nudging her deepest places, flooding her with sensation and warmth and _oh Maker _his magic, his _magic _that set her tingling in _all _the right places at _all _the right moments. _His _magic that felt so much more intimate and right and powerful than any others', that was made of something more than just raw power and tugged at connections between them she hadn't even known were being made.

His cries and hers subsided and he rested against her, gasping. Her hands moved over his wet back and he pushed back a lock of wet hair, grinning that grin of his that made her feel warm all over.

A crash of lightning striking near made them both jump and he slid from her, wet robes falling back into place. "Storms are fantastic," he said. "I always thought so. But they're even _more _fantastic now."

She grabbed the back of his neck and pulled him down for a kiss. "I totally agree," she said when they were finished. "Now let's go and get dry."


	15. Styles of Command

_A response to (my own) BSN prompt - Claustrophobia. I was originally thinking about my three wardens and how they're different to each other, so I thought I'd write the prompt three times in my three different universes. For anyone who doesn't know - the first is __Beginnings/Losses/Of Wardens and Mages__, the second is __Shades of Grey__ and the third is __Caged__._

* * *

"Is this a bad time to tell you I'm claustrophobic?" he said. Miranda looked surprised, her clear grey eyes suddenly concerned for him.

"Truly?" she said. "That's terrible! Why didn't you mention it before?" He pursed his lips. Concerned was good. Concerned was nice.

"You never asked?" he said, smirking a little.

She stepped closer to him and prodded his chest. "Funny, you _look _like a man," she fluttered her eyelashes at him and he felt heat come to his cheeks. "Oh, and you _react _like a man. But you're really just scaredy like your little pussy, aren't you?"

He growled and she laughed. "Come on, Anders. I'm sure you can find _something_ to distract you while your down there."

"Trying to make me forget about it?" he said. "Your charms won't work on me, woman."

She laughed and tossed her head, turning her back on him and walking away. His eyes followed the curve of her backside as her hips swung and he sighed lustily. _You're a liar, Anders._

* * *

"Is this a bad time to mention I'm claustrophobic?"

"Yes."

_Blunt and to the point. That's our Commander. _He still hesitated a moment at the entrance to the deep roads, and it was only the sounds of a struggle that forced his reluctant feet into movement again. Aedan hadn't even bothered to wait for him - the only member of the party who had even noticed that Anders hadn't moved was Oghren, who was looking back at him with his eyebrow raised.

"Sodding surfacers," he muttered as Anders walked past him. "Just don't get us killed."

Anders frowned. He couldn't figure the dwarf. Aedan he knew was a rat bastard and Nathaniel was an arrogant arse, but the dwarf had moments of clarity through his drunkenness that made Anders think there was more to him.

They killed the darkspawn who were trying to drag the dwarf girl away and Anders healed her cracked ribs. She was surprisingly cheerful for a member of the Legion of the Dead and Oghren immediately started flirting with her. Anders supposed he would have done the same, if he wasn't so busy trying not to think of the walls closing in on him.

It only got worse. But it wasn't until they started having to fight those damn childer grubs that he started shaking. "What is it?" Nathaniel asked him as he wildly misdirected a cold spell at the end of the battle. He slammed his staff into the offending hand and bit his lip, noticing that Aedan was looking back at him from where he had been speaking to Sigrun, lips pursed as though he was considering something.

"Nothing," he said.

An hour later, after Nathaniel had painstakingly disarmed the nightmare network of traps that dotted the rear entrance to the fortress and they'd just dispatched yet another group of darkspawn - this time with emissaries - that he really discovered how much trouble he was in.

He'd been concentrating on ... well on not losing concentration. So hard, that when the breath was knocked out of him and he was slammed into a wall he didn't even have time to react.

"Listen to me," Aedan hissed at him, his cold blue eyes boring into him, his elbow firmly wedged in the hollow of Anders' throat. The man was shorter than Anders, but far, far bulkier and Anders had never before appreciated just how easy it was for one human to snap the neck of another. "I don't care _what _you're afraid of. Spiders, snakes, sodding _butterflies_ but if it stops you from doing your job or endangers another warden I will kill you where you stand." He pushed into Anders' throat hard enough to make him gag before stepping back. "Now heal Nathaniel before he bleeds to death." The Commander spun on his heel and stalked away without even waiting for Anders to answer.

Anders rubbed his throat as he knelt to attend to his fellow warden's wounds, his claustrophobia completely cured for the moment.

Truly, he didn't need anything _else _to fear down here.

* * *

"Is this a bad time to tell you I'm claustrophobic?"

Alim looked back at him. "You're claustrophobic?" he said, eyebrow cocked. Anders nodded. "And _I'm _the elf here."

"Hah, Sparklefingers probably just wants to duck out on work," Oghren said, chortling.

"I'll have you know this is a documented and legitimate fear that even royalty have suffered from in the past," Anders said, bristling at both the elf and the dwarf's tone.

"Man up, loverboy," Alim said, grinning.

Anders shot the elf a look. "Would you _stop _calling me that?"

Alim shrugged. "I'll cuddle you if you start crying," he said.

"I won't!" Oghren piped in.

Anders threw up his hands. "Andraste's bloody rags!" he swore. "I happen to be legitimately frightened here."

"Commander, it'll do no one any good to have a twitchy mage in the party," Nathaniel said. Anders sneered at him. Trust the Howe to be the voice of calm reason.

The elf rolled his eyes and trudged back to Anders. "You can leave me here if you want," Anders said, then fixed the Howe with a glare. "I'd hate to _go off _and hurt someone _accidentally."_

"Honestly, will you just shut up!" Alim said, then lifted his hands and started casting. Anders was suddenly hit with a combination spell - quite complex - that settled his heart rate and soothed the fear out of him.

"What was that?" he asked.

Alim snorted. "Best spirit healer in the tower my pointy ears," he said. "Looks like _someone _studied _harder _than you," the emphasis on his words wasn't lost on Anders but the buzz of the spell stopped him from getting too irritated. Really, you get caught by the man's best friend having sex in a public place _once..._


	16. Jealousy

_This was written for the BSN prompt JEALOUSY (funnily enough). I asked Amhran_Comrac for permission to use her Maggie Amell from Never Boring and Apostates of Amaranthine, two of the most awesome fanfics out there (they're on my favourite stories list if you're interested, and you damn well should be). Maggie Amell has got to be my favourite warden out there who isn't mine, so I just had to steal her for a little while. Thanks!_

_

* * *

_

Mail came through the Keep fairly regularly these days, and Neria even had her own office in which to sort through it. It was a chore she actually enjoyed - the peace and quiet of her office made a nice change from the practice fields or the dining hall. Wardens weren't known for their quiet and studious ways, and Neria sometimes found herself nostalgic for the soft whispers of the Tower library.

Anders was with her, writing in one of his spellbooks. He liked to make free with her office (considering it had once been _his _office) and had quickly realised she preferred her work space to be silent (or at least as silent as it could be, given some of the things they did there).

There was a knock at the door and Sigrun poked her head in. "Mail," she said.

Anders laughed and got to his feet. "Commander, since when do you do mail delivery?" he said.

She grinned. "Since there's a letter from Antiva for you. I'm curious about who they've got to replace Natal as head of the mages."

"Ooooh, goody," Anders said, snatching the envelope from her and opening it.

"Hey, last I checked I was supposed to be in charge here," Neria said.

Anders gave her his most charming grin and she, of course, melted. He opened the letter and scanned it, his eyes widening and his jaw dropping as he did so.

"What?" Neria said. "What is it?"

Anders handed her the letter. "Now, that's got to be the most unexpected thing I have read this week. Even including that passage in..."

"The Commander doesn't need to know about your taste in literature, Anders," Neria said.

"Oh, please go on!" Sigrun said. "Zevran and I..." Neria scanned the letter to reach the signature at the bottom, not hearing her Commander's chirpy voice as she educated Anders about her love life.

_"Margaret Amell?" _

Anders was giving her _a look. "Fantastic, _isn't it?" Anders said. "I had no idea she'd even survived the rebellion!"

"Oh, I knew she _survived the rebellion," _Neria said, her voice almost cracking with fury. "But _Margaret Amell, _a _warden? _What on Thedas were they _thinking?"_

"I take it you know this woman?"

Anders was practically bouncing from foot to foot. "Maggie's Ferelden," he explained to Sigrun. _Maggie, _Neria noted, suddenly even more furious. _He called her _Maggie..."She was one of the best... Sided with Uldred, though, from what I heard. I assumed she'd died with the rest of the blood mages."

Neria had a brief flash of memory. Maggie and she, face to face in the library before Wynne had raised the barrier. Maggie's cool green eyes appraising her. She and Jowan had been friends and she was already damned for letting _him _go.

Maggie had offered to help. Neria had believed her. Neria had let her go. Later, when her name came up as one of those who had gone over to Uldred, Neria had fumed. But by the time Commander Cousland and the others had arrived Maggie had managed to find her way out of the tower. Neria had assumed she'd turned apostate and fled, but really, it made sense that she'd end up a warden - the woman had always been slightly crazy about them.

"You look angry, my love," Anders was saying.

"That woman is a complete _menace," _she said. "I can't believe they're trusting her with command."

Anders cocked an eyebrow at her. "Come on, Neria. She's not _that _bad."

"Oh, of course _you _would say that," she muttered, looking down to read the letter more thoroughly.

_Neria,_

_I'm guessing you're just the tiniest bit shocked to hear about my current position. I certainly was. Turns out the Antivan wardens are more impressed with the size of my fireballs than my administrative abilities. In any case, Natal thought I'd fit the bill for this job and it's a bit difficult to turn down the request of a man who's about to head into the deep roads to be killed._

_I made it to Antiva just before the end of the blight. The wardens found me before the Templars, luckily, and you can probably guess the rest. Part of me wanted to come back to Ferelden as soon as I could, but Antiva's actually not half bad when you get to know it, and before I really knew it, it became a home for me, of sorts. So here I am._

_I wanted to write to you personally as I know we didn't exactly part on the best of terms. Please believe me when I tell you I had no idea Uldred was possessed. None of us did. And I know you tried to help Jowan. That means a lot to me. _

_I suppose there's not much else to say. Just believe that I'm a warden, first and foremost, whatever else you might have heard about me, and I hope if we meet in the future we'll do so as such, and not as anything else._

_In Peace, Vigilance,_

_Margaret Amell._

_P.S. Is it true Anders is a warden over there? You've got to say hello to him for me!_

She'd almost been sympathetic to the woman. Right up to the postscript. "Nice to know she remembers me!" Anders was saying, grinning that damnable grin.

Neria shot him with a lightning bolt, scrunched the letter up, threw it in the fireplace, and stormed out of the room.

* * *

Later, in their room, Anders crept in almost as quietly as Pounce. "Neria?" he said. She angrily wiped tears from her eyes and bit her lip as he sat on the bed next to her. He took her hand, which she left limp in his, refusing to meet his eyes. "What is it?" She shook her head. Truly, she wasn't even sure why she was upset. He sat next to her, stroking her hand with his warm fingers.

"It's about Maggie, isn't it?" he said finally. She pressed her lips together. "Neria, _please. _I need you to give me something here."

She blew her breath out her nose. "Yes. It's about Maggie."

"We were over _long _before..."

"Maker, I _know _that," she interrupted. "I _know _you're not... with her... it's just... she was so sodding _crazy... _and _you_ used to be the same and sometimes I think I've _killed _something in you and perhaps you should have ended up with her instead..."

He pulled her into his embrace and hugged her tightly. "You're a complete idiot," he said. "Truly, the stupidest woman alive."

"Not helping."

"Maggie and I... we had a lot of fun. But the same could be said about Maggie and at least ten other people... possibly more... in the Tower. I'm glad she's ok, but I'm a different person now."

She looked at him, his hazel eyes showing wrinkles at the edges - from laughter, not worry - his full lips always ready to smile, even in the direst circumstances.

"Is that my fault?" she asked.

He grabbed her chin and turned her face to his. "Yes of _course _it is. But trust me when I say it's a _good _thing."

She let out a breath and closed her eyes. "I love you," she whispered.

He kissed her, slowly and thoroughly and so, so sweetly that she melted against him. When they parted he was smirking at her and she had to resist the urge to zap him again. "I love you too," he said. "Always, _always _believe that."

She closed her eyes and leant her head against his chest. _Sod you, Maggie Amell, _she thought.

But she was smiling when she thought it.


	17. One Thousand Dead

_A little drabble to celebrate 1000 page views of my DevArt page._

* * *

He kept count of the people he killed. It was important to him. Every mark, every bandit, every innocent that died by his hand was tallied in his mind.

For the first hundred, he even remembered their faces.

During the Blight it began to be difficult. Not only was his count climbing higher than it had ever been before, it started being important to keep track of who killed who. He could never explain to the warden why it was he preferred to fight with his sword and dagger and _not _his bow, despite being a perfectly good archer. If he was out of melee it was harder to keep track of who he killed. The lives he took became impersonal. He did not wish his count to be clouded with uncertainty.

Luckily they were so desperate for coin once the battles were done they nearly always looted the corpses. So it was easy enough to tell who killed who. The Templar and the Qunari left bloodied messes behind them - as did the dwarf when he finally joined them. Leliana's kills were precise and delicate - the mark of a true professional. The mages - well - magic did things to a body that often meant there was no body left to find.

The warden killed with controlled fury. Her dead were the hardest to distinguish from his own. It was lucky, therefore, that they were rarely in the same part of the battlefield. She fought side by side with the Templar - a practiced dance that he could not intrude upon. It had been well established when he first met them.

Unfortunately.

Still, Zevran was nothing if not used to disappointment, and there were plenty of other diversions to be had during the Blight.

After the Blight was more difficult.

He noticed her when he first came to the Vigil. He'd been in Antiva, sorting out the Crows... several people were dead who richly deserved to be and he was as free as he would ever be. His count stood in the nine hundreds - although it was Commander Cousland called him to the Vigil to ask him to look after her husband for her while she was away.

The offer had its appeal and he took it. But more appealing were the companions she had chosen to surround herself with. The woman attracted the strangest types. Delectable, these new wardens. The apostate and the archer - light and dark to flank her - but it was the dwarf who captured his attention.

She was marked, as he was, by her past, with ink and needle. Yet she bore none of it in her demeanor. He'd seen enough, in Orzammar, to know precisely where she had come from - what she must have gone through - yet she joked with them as though she were a child, taking delight in the simplest things.

It was enchanting.

It was too many years - and nearly forty more dead (killing had once again become a more precise art for him, quality rather than quantity as his old mentor would have said) before he saw her again. Still sunny, but now burdened with command. Lines around her tattooed blue eyes that had not been there. Experience. Maturity.

When he began the dance he thought it would simply be for amusement. He had been wrong.

A simple trip to Amaranthine, to visit her vassals. They walked through the market place, her eyes twinkling as they lighted on the wares displayed, joking about her duster past. "I know I can afford to buy it... but don't you just get the urge sometimes to _test..."_

The cry came from behind them. Something stupid and racist and utterly _predictable _and he saw her eyes harden. Anger flared in him and he drew his weapons. Another voice joined the first - oh wonderful, there was more than one total fool in Amaranthine today - and suddenly a fight was joined.

As his thousandth kill fell to his blades and Sigrun, her back to him, her own blades flashing shouted something obscene at the fleeing attackers he felt the laughter bubbling up inside him - simple, pure, joy at being alive and next to this woman who took each day as though it were her last because, to her, each day she was given was one day more than she _should _have had.

All this time, he had thought he was seducing _her. _Instead she had infected _him._

One thousand dead at his hands. But here, now, the two of them were _alive._


	18. A Lucky Man

_BSN prompt - what if Anders was an origin companion? Oh, if ONLY!_

_

* * *

_

Anders watched incredulously from his precarious perch outside the tower window as a giant hawk flew in, picked up the two grey wardens in its claws and flew away again. The darkspawn seemed equally bemused, but at least they didn't feel halfway betrayed.

"You mean," he muttered to himself as he painstakingly began the careful work of finding footholds for his long climb down to the ground, "if I had been _less _quick with that arcane shield and actually _taken _the arrow, now I'd be off being some apostate's pet?" There was no way that hawk was a _real _one. Shapeshifting magic...

...would be extremely handy right now...

The horde were luckily not very bright. Once the Tower had been cleared, they swarmed back to the battlefield, allowing a sore and grumpy Anders to slip away towards Lothering. Climbing down the outside of the Tower of Ishal was definitely on his list of things-not-to-do again. On the plus side, he was free of the Tower. The Circle mages at Ostagar would undoubtably believe he was dead. There was a chance they would even destroy his phylactery (he could always hope).

Lothering was crushingly depressing. He set up shop in the Chantry, of all places, the Templar there taking in his robes and instead of clapping him in anti magic bracers, happily let him dispense cures for the locals in exchange for whatever payment they could spare (which wasn't much - but Anders didn't insist, and if they _wanted _to give him food he could certainly do with some).

He'd been there for a week, slowly accumulating supplies. Every time he thought of leaving, another villager would come with a sick child or a injury or a need for a poultice and he found he didn't particularly _want _to leave, not when he was doing some good. _This _was what a posting outside the Tower would have done for him, he thought bitterly, if they'd just trusted him enough to give him one.

He recognised them right away - the spiky haired blond and the simply _delectable _lady with the dog - but now they were accompanied by someone else. And if the dark haired lady rogue was delectable, the _obvious apostate _was good enough to feast upon. Anders found himself licking his lips as they approached his makeshift table. The rogue picked up one of his poultices and turned it over in her hands. "This looks like better quality than that snake of a merchant outside was offering," she said, then passed it to the apostate. "What doyou think, Morrigan?"

She turned it over in her hands and he leaned back in his chair, folding his arms and letting his gaze run over her. In the meantime the blond guy was nudging the other woman. "He looks familiar, doesn't he?" he whispered. She turned her grey gaze on him and he smirked at her.

"You were in Ostagar," she said. He nodded. "How did you get away?"

"While you two were being so inconveniently stuck with arrows I climbed out the window," he said. Morrigan looked up at him, obviously impressed and trying not to show it. She put the poultice back on the table.

"Very good quality," she said. "Better than most of your Circle brethren. I could, of course, do better, but seeing as we have no components..."

"Oh, ho! The lady thinks she's a better herbalist than me!" Anders smiled his most charming smile at the apostate to lessen the sting of his words. The two wardens had moved away and were talking in urgent whispers to each other. Anders noted, out of the corner of his eye, the way they leaned a _little _bit to close to each other as they spoke, how the boy's hands would twitch every now and then as though he wanted to touch her. Mmmm, one of them was taken then. He turned his full attention back to Morrigan. How lucky it was the less attractive of the two. "I would welcome the opportunity to test you," he said, leaning forward.

She looked singularly unimpressed, but it didn't faze him in the least. He _liked _a challenge.

"She's got virtually no healing magic - and this man's circle trained. Alistair, could you stop being a Templar for two..."

"I'm _not _a Templar, I keep telling you..."

"Just... we need a healer. We're the last two Grey Wardens in Ferelden - we have to _get _to the archdemon to kill it..."

Morrigan was watching him, a small smile on her beautiful lips. He smirked at her. "Looks like _someone _thinks I might be useful," he said. "Possibly not in the capacity I'd most like, but..." he spread his hands.

"You would be willing to accompany us?" Morrigan asked. The two wardens were still bickering, but he got the impression they were both enjoying themselves.

"Do you see a stunning future for me here?" he replied. "Shall I ask them or should we wait for them to come to a logical conclusion on their own?"

"Will the circle let you off your _leash _long enough to be any use at all?" she asked with a sneer.

He frowned at her. "I was an apostate for fifteen years," he said. "I have _no _loyalty to the Circle. The Circle," he said, plucking at his standard issue robes and grimacing "can go fuck itself."

Morrigan laughed. "Indeed. So, why don't you gather your things?" Anders eyed the two wardens questioningly. Morrigan waved an arm "Oh, the boy always does as she says, they will certainly ask you."

"Lucky him," he said.

A couple of hours later he was kissing the hand of a beautiful red-head in the local tavern, surrounded by the groaning bodies of fools who he had been able, nay _encouraged _to shoot lightning at.

Oh, he was a lucky, _lucky _man.


	19. Children

She watched him from her perch on the wagon, one hand loosely holding the reins, the other cradling her swollen belly. He'd never been happy staying confined to the wagon when they were traveling. Felix had been upset, at first, at his tendency to leap down at every opportunity and run off to investigate things. He'd tried reasoning with the boy. Joscelyn had watched and laughed inwardly at the twists and turns of a four year old's logic.

"You might get lost!" Felix said.

"I know where the road is, papa."

"What if you get hurt?"

"Cuddles make me feel better!"

"You'll get your tunic all dirty."

"Dirt's fun!"

Eventually Felix had given in under the crushing weight of Anders' logic and let him wander where he wanted - provided he always kept the wagon in sight. Provided he never spoke to anyone. But Joscelyn knew Felix still worried.

_Will he worry more about this one, because she's his? _Felix had been so overjoyed, when she'd fallen pregnant again. It had been a long time, since Anders was born, and despite her assurances to Felix that everything was fine, he'd begun to worry.

"You're very special, Maeve" she whispered to her belly as Anders raced up and down next to the carriage, giggling delightedly at a butterfly. _All of my children will be special._

_

* * *

_

"Is mama _sick?" _Anders was hopping from foot to foot in the room they'd taken at the inn. "There's nothing wrong with the baby is there? Papa?"

Felix ruffled his son's hair. "No, Anders. It just hurts a little, that's all."

Joscelyn was struggling to breathe normally as she paced the room. "It should be quick this time," she said, giving Felix a smile. "You'd better get the midwife."

* * *

They set up camp early - Maeve had been fussing and Joscelyn was still more tired than she liked to admit. It was surprising how good it felt to sink down onto the log Felix pulled up for her and simply watch as he prepared their evening meal. Anders had run off somewhere, but she wasn't worried...

..at least, not until she felt an unmistakable surge of power.

When he came running with something cradled in his hands, she was careful not to react any differently. Her eyes raked over his small form - the blond strands of hair, the chubbiness of his cheeks and the sparkle in those hazel eyes - his father's eyes - she felt a surge of love so strong she thought she might cry. Instead she forced herself to smile at him. "What is it, Anders?" He held out his small hands mutely and she took in the form of the bird, still dazed and covered in blood.

But completely healed.

"Can you fix it, Mama?"

She blinked. "Fix it, darling?"

"Make it better. Like you made me better when the snake bit me."

She caught Felix's eye, who was watching them, still as a statue. "I don't know," she said. "He looks pretty hurt, darling."

The tears that welled in his eyes tore at her heart. He didn't know that he'd healed the bird already. "But will it die?"

"Everything dies eventually, sweet one."

"No!"

She took the bird from his fingers and let her senses sink into it. Anders had done a perfect job - even sedating the animal so it couldn't feel pain while he worked. And he'd done it all _unconsciously._

_What do I tell him? _her thoughts were in a whirl. If she told him he'd done it already, he might try to do it again - he was too young - far too young to understand the implications of his power or control it properly. This was an accident. One that might not be repeated.

Felix didn't know what was happening, he warned her against helping the animal, but she was frightened, suddenly, of what Felix would think if Anders was like her - another thing different about him - his blond hair, his pale skin - his magic - all from his father, all branding him as not belonging to Felix when all she wanted was for the man she loved to think of her son as his own.

When the bird was revived and flew away she gathered her son into her arms and breathed in his little boy scent - part grass and trees and dirt and part what was quintessentially _Anders. _Her son. They wouldn't take him away. Not while she drew breath.

Anders seemed like to fall asleep - no doubt exhausted from using magic. Maeve was quiet in Felix's arms as her husband came to sit next to her on the log.

"What is it?" he asked her softly.

She looked at her husband, then down at Anders. This was _Felix. _This man would never do anything to harm them. "He healed the bird himself," she said softly, stroking Anders' hair. His eyes were closed and one arm was flung above his head in careless abandon.

Felix nodded, and reached out to rest his hand on the boy's chest. "I knew he would be like you," and there was a smile in his voice that made her look up and catch her breath.

Felix was beaming with pride. She felt her heart swell.

"I love you," she said.


	20. An Interesting Woman

_Short background for this fic for those who haven't read Consequences, and for those who have as well, because Consequences is in the process of being re-worked. Morrigan's son, Fion has shown up. Miranda and Alistair are dead and Flemeth is hunting for Fion. Duncan is King and Anders, Oghren, Zevran, Leliana and Yuri (childhood friend of Alistair's, now a Templar) are off saving the world together._

_

* * *

_

He _hated _the fade. More particularly, he hated the fade when she wasn't with him. Well, to be honest, he hated _most _things when she wasn't with him. He was going to have harsh words with Sigrun - and with Duncan for that matter - how dare there be a national crisis at a time when Neria was busy in Kirkwall? A short separation, he'd been certain - lord knows they didn't have enough time to be wasting on long ones, not now.

And he was absolutely _exhausted. _Two days, he and Rowan had spent on watch over Fion's sleeping form. Bizarre, that boy - well, grown man really. He looked so much like Alistair it made him sad - a reminder of who they'd lost - especially with those strange yellow eyes closed. Another day had been spent running from the giant dragon his grandmother had become - not that Anders hadn't faced many things in this life that were almost as frightening, but he wouldn't be able to close his eyes for a good long while without seeing the rows of teeth ready to crunch him...

Anders shuddered and tried to bring his attention back to the present. He ran his hand through his greying hair and then along his jaw - he needed a shave and a wash and a bed and about six days solid sleep.

The flap of wings brought him out of his reverie as a large hawk landed near their fire. Ah - this would be Morrigan. Anders own hawk form was not nearly as imposing as the forest witch's and he felt briefly jealous before remembering that one of the witch's other forms was a spider and feeling another pang of separation.

_Poor old Bess,_ he thought, before the bird's form shimmered and wavered, turning into one of the most beautiful women he'd ever seen.

_Huh, _he shook his head in wonderment. It really bemused him, sometimes, the luck Alistair had with women. _That's where Fion got the eyes then._

Later that evening, when he'd finally managed some sleep and Leliana and Yuri woke him for his watch Morrigan came to him. He frowned as she approached. What was it with apostates _other than him _and their ability to stay young?

"You are Anders, are you not?" she said.

He raised an eyebrow. "Most of the time," he said, guardedly.

"Fion mentioned you have shapeshifting magic," she said. "Where did you learn it?"

"Why do you ask?"

She pursed her lips. "I was told my mother was the only mage still capable of those spells."

"Well, you were obviously misinformed," he said, suddenly wanting the conversation over. He missed Neria with fierceness that almost hurt. "We recruited an apostate... oh, it would be seventeen years ago now. She learned shapeshifting from the Dalish."

"What forms can you take?"

"I only take the hawk form," he said. "And only in an emergency. My... the senior mage warden takes six forms."

She raised a delicate eyebrow. _"Six?"_

He allowed himself a small grin of pride. "Yes. Six." _And I'd pay to see your spider face off against Bess. Odds are _yours _isn't a queen._

"I am impressed. Would you consider showing me your hawk form? I would like to see if the spells differ from my mother's..."

He shifted uncomfortably. "I'd prefer not," he said.

"Why?"

She was certainly direct. "I'm not the best at it, to be honest. Hence the only-in-an-emergency thing. Neria..." his breath hitched a little at the name, "I'm certain our mage lieutenant would be willing to show you should you care to visit the Vigil once we're finished here."

"I doubt I will have the time," she said. "'Twould be much better if you showed me now."

"No."

"Why not?"

Anders rolled his eyes. "Because I can't transform cloth," he snapped. "I never mastered it. I'd have to be naked, and although it wouldn't be the first time I was naked in front of a beautiful woman I'd prefer if it were under different circumstances, thank you very much."

The witch looked at him blankly for a few moments, before exploding into laughter. He glared at her. Not embarrassed - no, he was old enough these days for embarrassment to be a luxury rather than a permanent state of being - but certainly... _annoyed. _

"Fine," he said, and started undoing his belts. The witch's laughter stilled suddenly, and he felt the appraising rake of her strange eyes as he let his robes fall to the ground. He was about to start on his smallclothes when a familiar voice floated across the fire.

"Hey, hey! What's this? And why haven't I been invited?"

Morrigan's eyes, which had burned with a sudden interest as Anders disrobed, flashed with anger. "I fail to understand how that odious creature continues to endear himself to others." Anders grinned.

"Oghren?" he said. "He grows on you." Morrigan pursed her lips and Anders laughed. "Shall we postpone this, dear lady?"

"Sparklefingers, if Neria finds out you're hanging around naked with apostates she'll tan your hide," the dwarf said as he approached.

"I'm hardly naked, Oghren," Anders said mildly, eyeing Morrigan, whose cheeks looked suspiciously red even in the dim firelight and making no move to retrieve his robes. "And I believe Morrigan was just leaving."

The witch spun on her heel and walked back towards her tent.

"I'm serious, Anders. What the sod are you doing out here with that bitch?"

"She wanted to see me shapeshift, Oghren."

"Oh, so that's what they're calling it these days."

Anders laughed and clapped his friend on his back. "Come on, skunkface," he said. "Let's get some rest."

"Get your hands off me, you manskirt wearing freak. At least until you've got your clothes back on, any way."

"If you say so," Anders said. He watched Morrigan walk for a moment before grabbing his robes from the ground and pulling them over his head. There was no doubt she was an interesting woman, but he'd spent his life _surrounded_ by interesting women.

One day he'd like to meet a dull one. Just for variety.


	21. Family Heirloom

_Response to this prompt on BSN:_

_Anders begins his adventures with the warden wearing a particular pendant. Upon inspection of the pendant, the description reads: "After Anders first escaped from the Circle Tower, he saved the life of Bann Ferrenly. This enchanted amulet was a reward for Anders's service and friendship."_

_Yet we don't have a lot of background on the pendant, the Bann, or what conspired. Can we play fill in the blanks for this weeks prompt?_

Family Heirloom

Freedom tasted good, air that wasn't tainted with books and lyrium and fear smelled better even in the middle of winter than the Tower did when it was sunny outside. But the best taste was that first sip of ale in the tavern he'd decided it was safe to stop for the first time - when he knew that at least for a night he'd be free to act like a normal person - before the Templars caught up with him - before people started rumours that he was an apostate - before he slipped up as he suspected he was always going to do, because someone was hurt or someone was a fool or because he just got a little bit _bored _with pretending to be something he wasn't...

She looked _particularly _tasty, he had to admit, with her long golden locks and delicate features. Obviously well off - rich clothing like that wasn't easy to come by - but not someone tied down by a husband or protective males, not with that dagger stashed at her side and those callouses on her fingers - archery he guessed. She was glowing with health, too, something that most of the people around him weren't. Well nourished, well dressed, well armed - he guessed a knight from the nearby estate.

She was alone, as well, but sitting at a table that had ample room for another. Anders collected his ale and approached, carefully arranging his most charming grin. This was the first girl he'd seen outside of the Tower for nearly six years and he wanted to make a good impression.

She looked up and caught his eye and her own lips curled in a smirk to match his. _Oh lovely. _It was always refreshing when they flirted right back.

"Looking for company?"

"With you? Absolutely."

A few hours later he was lying tangled in blankets, panting and sweaty. "Where do you get all that _stamina?" _she asked.

He traced a finger down the slope of her breast and casually flicked at a nipple, making her gasp. "Trade secret," he said, dipping his head to lick a bead of sweat from her collarbone. She closed her eyes and arched her neck, humming in pleasure and he leaned forward, intending to see if _her _stamina could be stretched any further, when the door burst open. Her eyes were suddenly wide and she _pushed _him off the bed, quite rudely he thought, especially given the men who had burst in were aiming _crossbows _and there'd been no hint of a smite so they clearly weren't after _him._

Without thinking he flung up a hand and encased the men in a forcefield before they could do any more harm. Then he realised what he'd done and groaned.

"Don't just sit there, you idiot," she was flinging his clothes at him. "Get dressed. Let's get _out _of here."

He blinked, but the need to _run _was too instinctive and he threw his clothes on - managing to be fully dressed well before she was. Still, he waited for her, re-casting his forcefield to give them the best head start possible before the two of them raced down the stairs of the tavern.

"Can you ride?" she said as they moved.

"In a manner of speaking," he said.

"Good," she led him to the stables, where a large roan mare was tethered, and threw a saddle over its back, doing up straps with a familiarity and skill that made Anders doubly certain she had something to do with the nobility. No heraldry, though, on her gear. _That _was puzzling.

"Um... you want me to come with you?"

"Well, yes. They've seen you. They'll be after you too. And... well.. you saved my life back there. I can offer you a reward if you come with me."

"I wouldn't mind knowing why they wanted to kill you in the first place before I agree to getting... " he swallowed nervously as he looked at the horse, "on _that."_

She kicked open the door of the stall and swung up to the horse's back, leaning down to offer him a hand. "Put it this way," she said. "You can come with _me _or risk exposing yourself to everyone in this tavern when you defend yourself against _them." _She jerked her head towards the two men with crossbows who were just that moment rushing out of the tavern doors.

He grasped her hand and swung up behind her. "Point taken," he muttered. She kicked her heels to the horse and he hung on for dear life.

Three hours later he was sore and rattled and a long, long way from the Tower. All things he had rarely been before. But he was also ever so slightly enraged. As they rode through the double gates to the massive estate he spluttered at her.

"You're the _bann? _Last I heard Bann Ferrenly was an old man!"

"My father," she said tersely. "And he died five years ago."

He swallowed. "I'm sorry," he said. "We don't get much news, in the circle."

"I'll forgive you then," she said, swinging down from horseback. It was dark - Anders guessed it was three or four hours past midnight, but a groom emerged holding a lantern, greeting the woman with a hearty "My Lady!" that was unreasonably cheerful considering the hour and the temperature.

"Why were they trying to kill the _bann?" _he said as he hit the ground on unsteady feet.

She grinned at him, handing the reins of the beast he had come to hate more than any other to the groom and pulling him by the arm towards the estate. "They want something of mine," she said. "And I've just thought of the most perfect way to stop them from ever getting it."

"Truly?" he asked weakly. "What could that possibly be?"

Servants were stirring as she dragged him through the halls and they acknowledged her with cheerful greetings that said a lot about what sort of lord she was. When she pushed him into what was obviously her chamber, however, he hesitated.

"Hang on, hang on - won't people be a little bit..."

"Oh shut up, Anders," she said. "I trust my people." She shut the door behind her and started to unbutton her shirt.

"Look, I've got a _lot _of stamina but we've just been on a horse for _hours..."_

She laughed. "Not that I don't have _every intention _of continuing our earlier activities as soon as possible, that's not what I'm doing right now." Her fingers rested on a pendant he'd noticed earlier. "See this?" she said. He nodded. "This is called the Fox's Pendant. It's a family heirloom."

He raised an eyebrow. "The Fox's Pendant?"

"Heard of the Black Fox?"

"Every child has," he said. "Stuck it to the Orlesians, fought for the poor, blah blah - it's all a legend!"

"He was my great, great, great, great grandfather," she said. "This belonged to him. It's proof - for those who know how to look for it - of the Fox's existence. Worth more money than this entire estate and everything in it."

Anders whistled and stepped forward, lifting the pendant from her skin (and taking the opportunity to lightly brush her collarbone with his finger as he did so) and examining it.

"I want you to have it," she said.

He dropped it back onto her chest as though it burned. "What?"

She reached behind her and unclasped the chain, dangling it in front of her. "I don't want it. We don't need it, it's a stupid reminder of something that's become a legend. If you enchant it you can hide its true form and no one will ever be able to find it again. I'll proclaim it stolen and those bastards will stop attacking me every time I try to go out and have fun."

Before he could stop her she had clasped the chain around his neck. Her arms stayed around him and her blue eyes fixed on his. He breathed in her scent and smiled a small smile. "I'll take it on loan," he said. She grinned.

He stayed with her for two weeks, before he caught wind of Templars searching the area for a known apostate. When he left the amulet nestled in the hollow of his throat, newly enchanted to boost his power and help his healing.

On his third escape attempt he heard of her wedding and smiled to himself in the tavern he'd made it to, eyeing the dark haired girl who'd given him the news and fingering the amulet as he did so, remembering golden hair and merry eyes and a breakneck ride through darkness.

Freedom _always_ tasted good.


	22. Frog Time

_Written as a silly little drabble in response to a prompt from Niksche on DevArt!_

_

* * *

_

The royal visits didn't happen that often these days. Miranda Cousland was still Commander of the Grey and she came to the Vigil every few months for Joinings and administration (and although she never let her husband know, the odd quick trip to the deep roads to exterminate darkspawn) but usually she left her husband behind.

This time Alistair came with her. Anders stood at the back of the Vigil's audience hall with his arms crossed across his chest and _scowled. _He knew he was being childish. He knew he was an idiot (Oghren told him often enough) but it was one of his few joys, this irrational (partly) dislike of the ruling monarch of Ferelden, and he was going to wallow in it.

"You should turn him into something," the dwarf was uncommonly stealthy sometimes and Anders looked down to see him leaning on his axe, surveying the Royal couple with a smile on his face. "Can't you mages do that? Turn people into frogs?"

Anders rolled his eyes. "How long have you been a warden for, Oghren?" he said. "Of course you can't. Shapeshifting is a lost art. Or it will be for as long as that Morrigan woman stays hidden."

"Couldn't you make him _think _he was a frog?"

Anders opened his mouth to say no, but froze, spell combinations drifting to the surface of his mind and linking together with uncanny swiftness. It would take disorientation... yes, and a bit of sleep, and a bit of horror, and a _strong _dose of... _Mmmm. Very, very tempting._

"Oghren, my old friend," Anders clapped the dwarf on the shoulders. "I think you may have made my day."

"Don't touch the goods, sparklefingers," the dwarf grunted, ducking away. "And don't make the Commander angry."

"Oh, I won't," Anders said, grinning as he left the council chamber.

"And don't blame me!" Oghren shouted at his back as he made his way to his quarters.

* * *

It would wear off in a couple of hours. And although he was fairly certain Miranda would know it had been him, he figured it would be worth it.

He felt the surge of magic - how could he not? And he recognised it as Anders' - the man's magic had a very distinctive flavour to it. But that was all the time he had before his mind clouded over.

* * *

She was _still _stronger than him. Or just knew how to disable him. And had that bloody Alistair been teaching her _Templar discipline? _Even more reason to hate the guy.

"Hey, did you _drain my mana?"_

"Lucky shot," she growled at him, elbow firmly wedged in the hollow of his throat. "Turn him back. _Now."_

Anders rolled his eyes and sighed. "Oh, he'll recover in an hour or two. Don't get all riled up, it was just a bit of fun. Oghren suggested it, actually."

"Anders, he's the _King of Ferelden. _Didn't you think that something like this might _hurt his reputation?"_

"Truthfully?" The glare that she returned him made him grimace. "Oh, ok. No I didn't. I'm sorry."

"No you're not."

"No I'm not. But I'll reverse it if you want. Since you asked so _nicely."_

Miranda Cousland, Queen of Ferelden and Commander of the Grey, poked her tongue out at him. Then she let him go. They both turned to the naked figure on the floor of the royal chambers.

Alistair Theirin looked blankly up at them, his tongue periodically flicking in and out between his teeth.

"Ribbit?" he said.


	23. Anders' Little Secret

"How long have you been together now, then?" Nathaniel was asking. They were sharing a bottle of Orlesian wine - Neria had insisted they take _something _back from the hideousness that had been their time there - while Neria and Jowan did something.. magey he supposed, although why he wasn't allowed to join in was a bit of a mystery.

"It's coming up on three years."

Nate twirled the goblet between his slender fingers.

"Why don't you marry her?" he said finally. Anders spluttered, nearly choking on a mouthful of his wine.

"What?"

"You heard what I said. You should marry her."

"This is just your way of distracting me from your little jaunts with my sister, isn't it?"

Nate grinned. "Probably," he said. "But it's a valid question nonetheless. You've never been with a woman longer than six weeks before, I think it's pretty obvious you're serious about her. And she adores fancy dresses, and parties...and" Nate smacked his lips, "wine. You'd have the best excuse for a party ever." Anders was biting his lip, looking troubled. "And yet you don't seem enamoured of the idea. Was I wrong about your feelings for her?"

"What? Maker, no! I love her. But.."

"But what?"

Anders started gnawing on a hangnail. "There's a problem..."

* * *

She knew _something _was going on. Four days away from the keep - away from herso soon after Orlais just didn't sit right. Nate knew what was going on, she could tell, but no amount of pestering could get it out of him. When Anders got back he was equally secretive about what had gone on there, although one of the wardens who frequented Amaranthine to visit his family had told her she saw him _in the Chantry _of all places.

"You haven't turned religious on me, have you?" she asked him one night. He was busy polishing his staff - Spellfury had nearly been lost in Orlais and he was unreasonably attached to the stick, in her opinion.

"Of course not," he said.

"So what were you doing in the Chantry of all places?"

He started, guiltily, then caught her eye, realising that he'd given away too much with that simple movement. "Who told you I was in the Chantry?"

"Hubert."

"That spying tattle-tale..."

Neria planted her fists on her hips and glared at him.

"I was... uh... making a donation..."

"Don't you _dare _lie to me."

He ducked instinctively - Neria had a habit of letting loose lightning when she was this angry and he didn't want singed hair - not today. He let out a sigh and fished around inside his robes.

"I ah.. I was having a talk with Nate the other day," he said. "And he mentioned something I've been thinking about... on and off... for a while..."

"Anders, stop hedging and tell me already."

He pulled out the box and got down on one knee in front of her. "I bought this," he said.

Her jaw dropped as she took the box from him and opened it. The ring inside was white gold - set with a large diamond and several small ones. "You.. you're asking me to marry you?" she stammered.

He looked even more guilty and sheepish. "Um.. yes. Well... _yes. _I want to marry you. But..."

Her eyes narrowed. "But what?"

"There's a slight complication I'm afraid..."

* * *

"How long are you going to keep him in there?" Oghren asked. Neria twisted the ring on her finger and grinned slyly.

"Until he's good and scared and until he understands he's not to keep secrets from me," she said.

"That eight legged monster won't hurt him, will she?"

Her grin deepened. "Why Oghren, I didn't know you cared so much about him."

The dwarf grunted. "Just don't want to go down to the deep roads without a healer, shorty," he said.

"Thanks for the support, ale-breath," Anders called. Neria thumped the bars and her... fiance.. jumped.

"She won't hurt him," she said to the dwarf. "Not unless I tell her to."

The cage was big enough for Anders to squish himself in a corner out of reach of Bess' fangs. The Queen spider, never much of one for exercise (queen spiders had soldiers and children for that, thank you) sat relaxed in the corner of the web that spanned the top right corner of the enormous enclosure, her eight eyes occasionally blinking open to eye the human man.

"Neria, _please," _Anders said. "I'm having it _annulled. _That's why I was in the Chantry."

"You should have told me, Anders," she said.

"How was I supposed to bring it up? Oh, I know we've been sleeping together for the past three years, but I'm actually married?"

"Something along those lines, _yes."_

"She wouldn't have sheltered me from the Templars unless I did it. I _told _you..."

"Why did you wait this long to get it annulled then?"

"I didn't... I didn't even know where she _was... _it was pure luck she happened to be in Amaranthine when I went there... Neria... I love _you_, please let me out of here..."

Neria tapped her foot on the flagstones and crossed her arms over her chest. The diamond on her finger flashed in the light. "I want a cake," she said then. "And Orlesian champagne. And a _band."_

"Anything you want, my love."

Oghren was doubled over laughing.

"And you have to wear _pants. _None of these 'formal robes'. I want to see your _legs."_

"Maker's breath woman.."

Neria clicked her fingers and Bess' eyes snapped open. Her fangs clicked together menacingly.

"Yes, YES, whatever you want!"

She grinned and unlocked the cage, allowing her lover to scramble out and enfold her in his arms. Oghren clapped the blond mage on his back. "Congratulations sparkle fingers," he said as Anders kissed the top of his fiance's head.

Neria winked at the dwarf and wrapped her arms around Anders' waist.


	24. Knowledge

_Ok, I need to put a bit of explanation here because I've gotten a few questions about it - sorry! I was lazy girl and didn't bother before I posted it. _

_This is set in the Beginnings/Losses/Of Wardens and Mages/Fractures universe - set during Fractures in fact. I was asked to fill a prompt by someone who has read Consequences (which I keep telling people not to read because I'm reworking it). The prompt was to tell how Morrigan learned the Dragon shapeshifting form, since she does know it in that fic._

_Also, I've changed the summary of this collection because it's started to expand beyond just Anders prompts - sorry if people weren't aware of that!_

_

* * *

_

"What are you doing, Mamae?" the soft voice came from behind her. She started, guiltily - Fion was far too skilled at sneaking around. She wasn't sure where he got it from - she used animal forms when stealth was necessary.

Fion just seemed to glide from place to place with no effort.

"Mamae's just practicing, Fion," she said. The boy's calm yellow eyes appraised her. His blond head just reached her hip, yet he often spoke with the inflections of an adult. She wondered, sometimes, if it was because of what he was, or simply a product of having no other children to talk to save the odd Dalish wanderer from the clans.

"Shapeshifting?" he said, cocking his head on one side.

She bit her lip and nodded. "Indeed," she said, then sat on the ground cross legged in front of her son.

"You need a form to follow," he said. "Where is your form?"

"I have none," she said simply.

"Which form are you trying to learn?"

"Your grandmother..." she smiled to herself. Who knew if his grandmother was even related to him by blood? She wasn't even certain Flemeth was related to _her..._ "Your grandmother could shapeshift into a dragon, Fion. I saw her form many times."

"Seeing it in your mind is not the same as seeing it in person."

She nodded, smiling. He remembered all of her lessons. It was frightening, sometimes - that she never had to repeat herself. She well remembered Flemeth cursing her for forgetting a small instruction.

"I can show you a dragon form," Fion said then. Morrigan sat back on her heels, shocked suddenly. Was it to happen now, then? Was her son going to cease being her son and become something else entirely?

"Fion..." she found her breath coming short. "Fion _how?"_

"If you come into the fade with me, I can show you," he said. "Sometimes, when I'm in the fade, I see dragons. They live there."

She took her son's hands in hers and looked into his pale eyes, suddenly afraid. "Fion, do you know who the dragons are?"

He shrugged. "They're just dragons, mamae," he said. "They live there. Sometimes they talk to me."

"What do they say?"

Her son looked down, possibly realising he had worried her more than he meant to. "I can't understand them," he said. "Although sometimes I think I can. They _are _dragons, though, Mamae. And you could learn your form from them, if you came with me."

_Is it you, mother? _She thought to herself. _I know you're there somewhere... _She avoided the fade as much as possible, built wards around her dreams, worried, awake at night in their tiny hut while her son slept... but Flemeth was canny. She would find a way to get to them. _Is this your way?_

"Can you take me there now, Fion?" she asked her son softly. The boy nodded, his mouth twisting in an expression that reminded her, suddenly, of his father. The resemblance to Alistair _would _be uncanny, were it not that her son's expression was usually so grave. To see him uncertain, even a little bit, was jarring for Morrigan.

"I can," he said. She reached out and cupped his cheek in her hand.

"Are you frightened, Fion?" she asked.

He bit his lip. "A little, Mamae," he said. "I don't want you to hurt them."

The laugh burst from her suddenly. "You do not want _me _to hurt _them?"_

"They're afraid, Mamae," Fion said, seriously.

She frowned. "How many of them are there?"

"Two," he said. "They're very beautiful."

She touched her son's face, a sudden idea occurring to her. "I am certain they are, Fion. Will you take me now?"

* * *

The fade always felt sharper in the presence of her son. He was far, far more skilled at navigating it than she. His small hand in hers, he took her through a portal that lead to an area that looked like the Deep Roads.

The dragons were there. She drew in a gasp at their size and beauty - glittering scales and leathery wings and sharp claws. The first was grey-green, smaller than the second, which was a deep black.

The first dragon lifted its head and fixed her with a dark gaze full of intelligence, and a hint of fear. She shivered.

_Razikale, Lusacan. _Uncorrupted.

_You know who we are, _she felt the words burn in her mind.

"I do," she said. Fion looked up at her, his eyes wide. The dragon - she guessed it was Razikale - turned its head to her son.

_Our brother, _it said. _You freed him. Will you also free us?_

She swallowed. "I will try," she said.

_That is sufficient, _the dragon said. _ You wish for knowledge. This we can give you. But you must promise to keep our brother safe. Safe from the Woman of Many Years. Safe from the corruptors._

She took her son's hand. "Always," she said fervently. The dragon stood, and padded towards them - so much more ungainly on land - then leant its massive head down to hers and opened its jaws. Fion's hand tightened on hers, but she was not afraid, not even when its mouth opened and she felt the heat of its breath. White hot light filled her mind, then, and she opened her mouth to scream, but no sound would come...

* * *

She woke to a small hand on her face and a tingle of healing magic. Fion rarely used his power, it came forth when she was instructing him, but never otherwise. To feel it now was to feel some of her son's love for her and she had to resist the urge to crush him to her.

"Mamae," he said. "Did they give you what you needed?"

She felt the new knowledge within her and smiled as she nodded at her son. _I made a promise, _she thought, as Fion's face lit up with pleasure. _I intend to keep it._


	25. Under Orders

_For the BSN Anders forum - prompt was Blood Magic. Set in the Fractures universe - about a year after the end of Fractures.

* * *

_

Sigrun didn't usually call them into her office. She was a sneaky one, tending to turn up at the door of their bedroom, or come into Neria's office without announcing. Anders suspected it was her dust town instincts and _not _something she did for kicks - she was always _incredibly _embarrassed if she interrupted anything... vigorous.

After a while she'd stopped picking the lock on the door. Anders had promised her they would only lock it if they were doing something she didn't want to share.

This time, he and Neria were working with the most recent warden mages in the new training arena that they'd finished setting up a few weeks after Jowan had joined them. That she wanted to see them in her office was worrying enough. That she sent _a servant _to fetch them was even more so.

"Do you think she's going to make us call off the wedding?" Neria said, looking worried.

Anders felt a little thread of fear in his belly at the thought. Warden policy clearly stated his and Neria's plans were... unconventional at best and against the rules at worst, but Sigrun had as good as told him she didn't care. "I doubt it," he said.

"Then what could it be?"

"Why don't we get there and find out?"

When they got to her office she found Jowan already there. Both of them were wearing uncharacteristically sombre expressions an Sigrun was holding a letter in her hand.

The thread of fear got bigger. Jowan looked up at gave them a sad smile - all of his smiles were a bit that way, not that Anders could blame him.

"What is it?" Anders asked.

Sigrun threw the letter on her desk, disgust marring her features. "Read it," she said. "Weisshaupt's decided to interfere with us again."

Anders looked at Neria, who picked up the letter and read it, her eyes widening as they slid down the page. "Can they _do _that?" she said finally.

Sigrun shrugged. "Any means necessary," she said shortly. "I suppose they think it's necessary."

"What is it?" Anders asked. Surprisingly, Jowan answered.

"Weisshaupt heard that you reversed my.. er.. tranquility," he said. "They're pushing the Commander to conscript as many more tranquils as we can without sending the Chantry into more conniptions than the whole Orlais thing did. And send them the methods you used, of course."

"That's not the worst bit, though," Sigrun said. "The pertinent part of the letter says that now that the Ferelden wardens have their very own blood mage the rest of you better get cracking and learn to be malificarum yourselves."

Anders' jaw dropped. "Weisshaupt is _ordering _us to..."

"Learn blood magic," Sigrun finished for him. "Yes."

Jowan spread his hands. "I'm so sorry.." he began.

"Shut up, Jowan," Neria said forcefully. The dark haired man clamped his lips closed so quickly that Anders almost laughed. "This isn't your fault. For all you know they were going to send us their own malificar to make us learn it eventually any way."

"But..."

"I said shut up." The tiny elf he loved with all his heart started to pace the room, her hands firmly clasped behind her back and her body thrumming with fury. "Even if Anders and I agreed to do this, there's no _way _some of the other recruits would. And are they _aware _that the only reason Anders and I are even _here _is because the Chantry proved we _weren't _blood mages?"

Sigrun shrugged. "You read the letter. It's the same as all the other letters I've gotten from the First Warden. Not even a hello, just 'do this right now'. Even when I _went _to Weisshaupt they didn't bother to say more than that."

"Are they going to send someone down to check up on us? And what will they do if we_ don't _follow their instructions..."

"You could tell them I died," Jowan said suddenly. Anders looked at him. "Hell, if I hadn't survived the joining they wouldn't be able to ask me to do this..."

"Doesn't solve the problem of them sending us a malificar of their own," Anders pointed out. "Which I'm sure they would have, eventually. Perhaps they didn't think it was worth the bother when there was just me and Sevarin, but now we've got what? Fifteen mages? With the apostates Helena found while we were away and Branwen's last Tower run..."

Neria took his hand in hers, he was babbling, he knew it, but the thought of having to become something he'd been careful to avoid all his life was making his hands shake.

Jowan sat heavily in one of the many armchairs that dotted Sigrun's office, burying his head in his hands. "This always happens," he muttered.

"How many times do I have to tell you to shut up?" Neria said sharply.

He managed a weak laugh. "I think you'll be telling me to do that for the rest of my life," he said.

Sigrun was watching them all, a fierce expression on her face totally at odds with her usual cheerful demeanor.

"I'm not going to order you to do this," Sigrun said. "If Armand or Branwen or any of the other mages want to learn, will you teach them, Jowan?"

He spread his hands. "Seems stupid not to," he said.

"Fine. That'll have to do." She took the letter back from Neria and threw it on the desk. "I'll write to Weisshaupt and tell them you're all attending malificar classes like good little heathens and they can go fuck themselves."

It was the second time in as many minutes that Anders' jaw dropped. Sigrun gave him a sunny grin. "What if they..." he started.

"If they find out, I'll take the blame. 'S my fault. You guys are _my _wardens, not theirs. They're hardly going to line you up and ask you to cut yourselves. Not on my watch, anyway."

He blinked. "If you're.."

She fixed him with a glare. "Decision. I just made one. Now go away."

They did.


	26. What do you do with a drunken sailor?

He tapped his foot as he waited for the chantry sister to come out from the room of records. He was getting stares, he knew. From the few people who were seeking solace from the Maker. From the two Templars…. _looming _with their… _Templar germs _on the doors. From the chantry sisters… oooh, _that _one was definitely _not _staring at him in a disapproving way… _married, getting married mind on the job you idiot…._

He possibly shouldn't have chosen to wear the Tevinter robes. He was well known in Amaranthine, well enough known that he didn't need to wear the Warden griffon emblazoned robes to avoid being picked up by the germy ones, but seeing a _mage _in full regalia in _the chantry _without at least one Templar hovering over them like a… corpse fly… probably put people off their morning chants.

When the sister emerged holding a sheaf of papers in one hand and an official Chantry records book in the other he breathed a sigh of relief. She plonked the book on a lecturn and started leafing through it. "So, Anders… Anders _Noyers _married Harriet _Merevel_ on the Fifth Harvestmere year twenty-eight…"

"Anders _Noyers _is it?" the voice was incredibly familiar and Anders froze. He felt hot breath on the back of his neck and he resisted the sudden urge to call on his magic - in the chantry, surrounded by Templars, even with his warden status that wouldn't be a good idea. "That's an Orlesian name. I wouldn't have picked you as an _invader, _dear, sweet mage."

"At least," he said, turning slowly, "I _have _a surname." She was standing with her hands on her hips, a cocky smile on her face. "Isabela. What on Thedas are _you _doing here?"

"I'm trying to answer an age old question, _Monsieur Noyers," _she said.

"And what question would that be?"

"What do _you _do with a drunken sailor, kitten?"

* * *

An hour later he was squeezed behind her amidst barrels of what certainly _smelled _like dried fish. He briefly wondered what else could smell like that, and only came up with a few answers, most of which involved Oghren's home still. He was careful not to let any sticky substances touch his bare skin.

"Tell me why I'm helping you?"

"Because you find me irresistible. You know that."

"I'll have you know I'm getting married in two months."

"Oh? From the conversation I overheard in the Chantry it seems you are _married _already."

"A minor setback. One that's being rectified as we speak."

"So. I am assuming you're marrying the _delectable _elven girl I transported to your family's homeland last year?"

"For the last time, Isabela, I'm not Orlesian. That was my mother's maiden name - you _know _how many…"

Her laughter was almost raucous enough to give away their position. If it hadn't been at the noisiest point in the docks of Amaranthine the whole purpose of their exercise would have been moot.

"Did you have to make me wear this?" Anders said, plucking at the dark shirt and pants he wore.

"You looked like a peacock in those furry things you were wearing," Isabela said. She turned and winked at him, letting her eyes linger at the loose ties that held together the neck of his shirt. If he'd been any other man, he was certain now would be the time to blush. As it was he had to stop himself from leering right back at her.

_Oh Maker, Anders, don't let _this _story get back to Neria._

"Black suits you," Isabela said. "Brings out the gold in that hair of yours. Or at least it would, if it weren't sensibly covered." She reached out and tweaked the corner of the black bandana on his head. He resisted the urge to slap her hand away. He rolled his eyes, about to give a witty retort that would have _floored her completely _when she went tense and looked over his shoulder.

"That's our man," she said. Anders turned to look. A perfectly ordinary looking pirate (and Anders was aware of the irony of that little thought) was staggering along the docks. No one was paying him any mind - drunken sailors were common in Amaranthine - in _any _port town.

"You know what I need, kitten," Isabela purred in his ear. He nodded and sent out his healing sense, coming to a conclusion immediately.

"You're right," he said. "The man's completely sober."

Isabela's eyes glinted with a feral light and she smiled as she stared at their target. "Gotcha," she whispered.

Anders got back to the Vigil the following day, to be greeted at the gates by Neria and Oghren. "Well?" she asked.

"One marriage successfully annulled," he said, gathering her in his arms and kissing her dark hair. She leaned against him and he could hear her humming in satisfaction - that adorable sound she made that reminded him of Pounce.

"Anything else interesting?"

"No," he said.

Her arms tightened around him and he felt a flash of foreboding. "Really?" she said.

"Oh… ah.. well I _did _run into Isabela…"

Oghren laughed a raucous bellow. "I guess I owe you a drink, tiny toes," he said, nudging Neria. She smiled happily.

"What?"

"Your pirate captain sent the Commander a present. Arrived just before you did."

"A present?"

He looked up to see Varel escorting the man they'd been watching the night before to the prison that had once held Nathaniel Howe.

"Going to be hanged in the morning," Oghren said. "Lyrium smuggler."

Anders looked down at Neria, who was nodding. "What?" he said. "She just said she wanted a little bit of help finding out if one of her crew members was getting drunk…"

"It was an act," Neria said. "A character he was playing. Isabela had him in the crew for months, apparently. They found the lyrium on her ship - they were going to hang her unless she found the culprit behind it. You helped her prove he was playing the whole ship false."

"By proving he _wasn't _a drunken sailor?" Anders asked, beginning to smile.

"That tavern he came out of was the drop off point," Oghren said. "She just needed enough proof that the man wasn't actually drinking when he went in there. You gave it to her."

"Enough for Garavel to order a raid on the tavern," Neria finished for him.

Anders was impressed. He'd honestly thought he was just doing Isabela a small service - the woman was as secretive as ever. "Well. Great!" he said. Neria giggled and squeezed his waist and they started towards the keep, before Anders stopped. "Hang on," he said, turning back to the dwarf. "So why do you owe Neria a drink?"

Oghren grinned. "I bet you wouldn't tell her you ran into Isabela," he said. "Figured you'd be too scared. After the whole Bessie incident."

Anders cocked an eyebrow at his fiance. "And you bet against him?" he said. She nodded, smiling.

"You wouldn't lie to me," she said. He felt a sudden rush of pride as she reached up to tweak his chin. "I _know _you're too scared to do that…." he swallowed as she ran her eyes over him, a small pink tongue darting out to wet her lips, "…_kitten."_


	27. Tranquil

_BSN prompt response - Tranquil. Set in the Fractures Universe_.

* * *

For the first week, Anders avoided him. He told himself it was because Neria needed time to catch up with her friend, without a jealous lover hovering over her every interaction with him. He told himself that Jowan had never liked him, in the tower, that they'd never really exchanged more than a few words with each other for the entire time they'd been in residence. He told himself there was nothing about the man to be worried about, or afraid of…

But he knew he was lying.

The first time he'd seen one of the tranquil he'd been thirteen. There were none in Highever, where he lived with his mother and his stepfather, but his parent's shop stocked things that could only be supplied by the Circle tranquil, and the circle would never trust an un-tranquiled mage to transport them. Felix had sent him to meet the delivery wagon at the gates of Highever.

The driver had been tranquil.

Anders' mother had told him that the Circle tranquiled mages, but he'd never met one before, and the concept of being severed from the fade really hadn't sunk in.

Talking to the woman on the way to his family's shops had given him nightmares for _months._

He would never have admitted it to anyone, but part of the reason he'd been so desperate to escape the Tower before his harrowing was the fear that they wouldn't let him do it, that he'd be taken out of his dorm one night by helmed Templars to have everything about him ripped away. The first time they'd captured him, he'd fought the entire time back to the circle, shocking his capturers with his ferocity, because he was _certain _what his fate would be. Sometimes, at night, he woke up in a cold sweat, wondering how he'd managed to avoid it.

So seeing Jowan, knowing what he'd been through, was a bit like prodding a sore tooth. He burned to ask what it had been like, but at the same time the thought of actually asking was like sticking his hand into a hornet's nest.

"Why won't you talk to him?" Neria asked him one night. "You're not jealous, are you?"

He grinned at her. "The way you're still jealous of Maggie Amell?" he said. She mock-slapped at his arm. "Of course I'm not jealous. I just think you should have some time together without me pocking my big head in all the time."

"Anders, he thinks you _hate _him."

"I don't hate him."

"He thinks you do."

"Tell him I don't."

"Why don't _you _tell him?"

"If he thinks I hate him he won't believe me if I tell him."

"He won't believe me if I do either. Anders…"

He heaved a sigh. "Fine. I'll talk to him tomorrow."

A small hand gripped his chin and his head was tilted towards hers. "Anders, _do _you hate him?"

"_No!"_

"Good. Talk to him then. He's actually a very nice person for a blood mage."

The next day he found Jowan down in the mage training room, staring at a practice dummy with a slightly pained expression on his face. It was early. He'd left Neria sleeping with Pounce curled protectively on her hip. Jowan looked up as he entered.

"She spoke to you then," he said softly. "I knew she would."

"She thinks I hate you. Or that I'm jealous of you. Or something."

"So you didn't tell her why you've _really _been avoiding me?"

"You know?"

Jowan snorted and looked back at the training dummy. "Of course I know. It's why most of the mages here can't bear to look at me. And it's not because of the blood magic thing." He lifted a finger and prodded the dummy. It swung back a little on its spring before stilling. They gave them faces - the dummies. Some of the more… mature mages had made this one look a good deal like Knight Commander Cullen. "This was me," he said softly. "For the last six years."

Anders swallowed. "What…"

Jowan fixed him with his blue gaze. "The worst thing about it? I quite liked it. Really. For the first time in my life, I was completely at peace. I had purpose. I was content. I never felt pain, or anger, or fear." The dark haired man shuddered hard. "I dream about it, sometimes. When I wake up…. " He closed his eyes for a moment. "I can tell you, it's a damn good thing Sigrun gave me a room on my own. And that the walls of the Vigil are thick."

"It's why I escaped before my Harrowing," Anders confessed. "Maker's balls, I was stupid." He shook his head, remembering exactly how stupid he had been. "Irving rescued me. Because I was… well… Anyone else and I would have been…. Without Neria to help me either…"

Jowan laughed. "She's very determined when she puts her mind to something," he said. "That's why I asked her to help me. I knew she'd tell me I was being an idiot if she thought I was… of course, that's also why I didn't tell her about the Blood Magic. Funny how I was willing to listen to her on somethings and too stupid to follow her advice on things that actually _mattered."_

"Neria understands why you turned to blood magic. Andraste, _I _would have, if I thought it would get me out of being made tranquil. You really didn't have any other choice."

Jowan pursed his lips. "Didn't I?" he said. "I suppose I didn't. At least now, with what the two of you have done, mages who are just sub-standard like me won't be subjected to that fate."

"Sub-standard?" Anders said. "I've seen you take down an ogre on your own…"

Jowan wiggled his fingers. "Blood mage, remember? There's a reason people are afraid of it."

"Your regular spells are just fine, Jowan."

"You sound like Neria used to," he said, smiling. "She never really knew… I was always better when she was there to help me."

"That doesn't make you a worse mage," Anders said. "We all need people around us."

The blue eyes clouded. "Not if you're tranquil," he said. The two men contemplated the training dummy for a few moments. It felt odd, to think of the man next to him as a maleficar. There was just something so… nice about him. Which was, of course, half the problem. If he'd just told Neria how jealous he was of her power, perhaps she would have talked him out of his uncertainty. Made him confident enough to allow the Templars to call him for his Harrowing.

"You know what, Jowan?" Anders said. "I suspect ninety percent of your troubles come from trying to be nice to people."

Jowan laughed. "What about the other ten percent then?"

"Plain old stupidity, like the rest of us," Anders said, clapping the other man on the shoulder.


	28. At First Sight

_Little drabble for the BSN prompt "Architect". I set it in the Fractures universe since I didn't want to go into something that I would be dealing with in Blood Wound in more detail. It's only short because otherwise it would have ended up another full length Awakenings fic!_

* * *

The cage swung. He knew his twelve year old self would have thought that was _great. _Now he just felt nauseous. It didn't help that he was looking down at the strapped up, stripped and shackled form of his Commander. Or that there were two other cages swinging near him that contained his other companions, both of whom were unconscious. It didn't help that for some reason he had not a skerrick of mana and it didn't seem to be regenerating the way it normally did. It didn't help that he was _naked._

Nakedness wasn't something he generally enjoyed when he wasn't in the comfort of his own (or preferably somebody else's) bedroom. The wooden floor of the cage, for example, had not been recently sanded. The possibility of splinters was ensuring that he moved very, very carefully.

He ached to be able to find out the Commander's condition. She'd only recently recovered from a nasty shoulder injury - he suspected she was lying when she told him it felt fine, and she looked so pale and small… _and soft and curvaceous…_

He shook his head, closing his eyes to dismiss the images that were crowding in. He had lockpicks in his hair (he always carried _some) _but opening the cage would be useless unless he could also find a way to lower it enough so the drop to the floor wouldn't kill him. If he had mana he might have risked it anyway - a broken leg, though undoubtably painful, could be healed enough to walk on. But he didn't have enough magic to heal an ant at the moment.

The reason why became apparent a few minutes later.

He thought at first it was a human - a tall, freakishly thin one, true, but a human nonetheless. It was only when he turned his head up towards the cage Anders swung in that he realised it was a darkspawn - the strangest darkspawn he'd ever seen. Tall, for one, and thin. With blue skin - how did that happen? And his warden senses - still unreliable - weren't giving him any more information than that.

"You are awake," the darkspawn said. Its voice was low and melodious. Anders shuddered.

"Yes. And a bit cranky, to be honest."

"I do not understand."

"Cranky. Annoyed. Bloody murderous, actually, if you want to be accurate. I like to be accurate. Especially when I'm _dangling naked in a cage with no mana. _What have you done to us?"

"I am sorry," the darkspawn said. "It was necessary."

"Forgive me if I sound rude, but I can't really see the necessity in this. Why not just kill us?"

It didn't have eyes. At least, it didn't have eyes that Anders could see. But he guessed it blinked, because it certainly sounded nonplussed.

"I need you," it said.

"That's reassuring. What for?"

The darkspawn lifted its hand and Anders felt his grip on consciousness loosen. "Hey," he said. "Hey I only asked a _question…"_


	29. At First Sight Part 2

When he woke he was lying in a cell, naked. Slight improvement, as the floor was stone and he seemed to be splinter free. He could also feel the edges of his mana regenerating.

His companions were also naked. Maker's breath, but this wasn't how he'd ever envisioned seeing either the Commander _or _Velanna, although part of him couldn't help but peek.

"I wouldn't, mage," Nathaniel's voice broke into his reverie. He didn't blush - truly, how did the archer _expect _him to react at being naked in the same room as two beautiful women? But he also didn't skip the opportunity to take in the competition.

_Mmm. I guess we're even in that regard at least._

"Why Nathaniel, are you going to defend their honour?" Anders said. "Or perhaps your time would be better employed getting us out of here."

"If I had picks, naturally," Nathaniel said. Anders cocked an eyebrow at him and felt in his hair for the picks he always kept there. Nathaniel snorted as his hands came back empty.

"Well. That's just… _rude!_" Anders exclaimed. "They went through my _hair!"_

Nathaniel gave him one of his rare grins and then turned to Velanna, who had regained consciousness. She immediately skittered away into a corner and covered herself with her arms, glaring at the two men as though they were about to attack her. Anders rolled his eyes and turned his back to where the Commander was still unconscious. Enough of his mana had returned that he could use his healing sense on her and he didn't like what he felt. She'd lost blood - the marks on her arms demonstrated as much. He got up and went to her, brushing dark hair away from her face and letting a small healing spell trickle through his fingers. Her eyelids fluttered and opened.

"Anders?"

"Commander."

"Why are you naked?"

"Good question. One I'd like answered myself."

"Please tell me I'm not naked too."

He allowed himself a small smile. "You're not naked."

"You're lying aren't you?"

His smile turned into a smirk and he let his eyes wander lower. She didn't hesitate, but slapped him across the face. He blinked and shook his head. "Well, I was going to get slapped any way. May as well have done something to deserve it."

"What's the situation?" she said, all business now as she sat upright.

"I'm not sure Commander," Nathaniel said. "We were all knocked out when we got to that symbol in the mines. Anders and I only woke up a few minutes ago."

"Actually, no," Anders said. "I woke up a while before. We weren't here though."

Miranda caught his eye. "Yes. Some sort of laboratory," she said.

"With an incredibly creepy talking darkspawn."

"The architect," Miranda said.

"Yes. Let's not meet him again. I really didn't like him."

Miranda looked thoughtful. "We're going to need to get out of here quickly," she said, and reached for her hair. Nathaniel and Anders both looked at her as she felt through the strands and finally cursed.

"Looks like we'll all need to find a new hiding place," Anders said, grinning. Miranda laughed, then turned her back on them. When she turned back, she held a lockpick in her fingers. "I don't even want to _know,_" he said. She grinned at him, then let her eyes run over his form appreciatively. He was furious to feel the start of a blush.

"You don't have a place for it, Mage boy," she said.

"That's what _you _think."


	30. Justice

At first, He didn't much like the fade spirit. Luckily he was usually well encased in that black-embossed armour, but every now and then Anders would catch a whiff of something that smelled a little too much like death, and the booming voice set his teeth on edge.

There _was _something to be said for having him in the front lines rather than say, Oghren, for example. Less work, for one thing. Justice didn't mind a few crushed ribs or a concussion and Anders was able to concentrate his talents on the more fragile members of the party. Everyone was grateful for a bit more healing, especially Alim, whose forays into blood magic were giving Anders the heebies these days. Truly, the human body wasn't supposed to leak like that, there was a _reason _skin was mostly waterproof.

And then they started talking to each other. At first, Justice was pretty much a self righteous arse, and Anders could _live _with that, because, well, _Justice. _He didn't much like the cracks about Pounce being his _slave _though. Pets were a different kettle of fish altogether, and the thought that he might be depriving Pounce of his freedom had niggled at him so much that he'd left the door to his quarters open for a whole week, wondering if the cat would take it upon himself to leave.

Pounce didn't. Cats were, Anders had always known, _smart. _And sticking with Anders was worth the indignity of having his ears ruffled every now and then, because Anders _fed _him. And gave him a warm place to sleep.

As their conversations moved into more interesting areas Anders began to realise that he actually _liked _the… man… spirit… corpse… He was so in love with the world, like Sigrun but without the stigma of a dark past; he was like Anders, but without… well, you know… _that…_

He found he sought Justice out of an evening, on the battlements of the keep. They would watch the stars together and talk about why the world could be a better place but _wasn't. _And really, he didn't smell that bad. Not as bad as Oghren on a bad day.

When he left Anders felt like he'd lost a friend.

When he came back, it was very, _very _easy to be relieved.

And too easy to forget the danger.


	31. Love

_BSN Anders Thread Prompt - LOVE. This is Anders from Blood Wound - as he hasn't been thrown into AU land as yet ;)._

* * *

"Tell me, Anders, what do you know of love?"

Anders spluttered into his pie. _"What?"_

"Oghren keeps pestering me about bodily functions and the nature of Kristoff's marriage to Aura. He says that I must know something of it, yet I am uncertain to what he refers. I thought that perhaps _you _might be able to educate me."

Anders blinked. _I'm going to kill Oghren. Slowly. With an ice spell and some very small knives. _"Have you asked Alim?"

"I do not think it wise," Justice said, his ghoulish face taking on the closest it could to a forlorn expression. "The Commander seems preoccupied at present."

"True," Anders pushed his plate aside, the last of the pie consumed. He truly didn't know why Justice bothered to sit at the table with one or another of them whenever they came to the inn - the spirit didn't need to eat. More often than not he chose to sit with Anders, especially if Nathaniel wasn't around. Sigrun bemused the spirit and Oghren outright antagonised it. Velanna - well Anders couldn't blame the spirit for not wanting to sit with Velanna. He was a relieved they'd worked out how to manage his all-pervading smell, though. "Why did you think _I _could help you?"

"From your… conversations with Velanna I assumed you were familiar with the emotion."

"You think from my conversations with Velanna that I know something about _love?"_

"Yes," Justice said. He really needed to work on his tone recognition. "Is it more than the simple exchange of bodily fluids I see in Kristoff's memories?"

Anders' jaw dropped. "Uh… " he blinked and shook his head. "You can _see _Kristoff's memories?"

"I can. I thought you knew this."

"Well… I suppose I didn't think about it much."

"Are you going to answer my question?"

Anders grimaced. There was no point being circumspect, or exaggerating to the spirit. Any attempt at irony or innuendo would sail straight over his delicately rotting head. "To be honest, Justice, I'm probably _not _the best person to ask."

"You have implied on several occasions that you have engaged in sexual relations with extreme frequency."

Anders didn't really know how much more embarrassing the conversation could get. Except that it _wasn't _because Justice truly didn't understand that his questions could possibly be embarrassing, never having felt that particular emotion himself. He heaved a big sigh and took a long pull of his ale. "Very well," he said. "First off, let's get one thing straight. There's a big difference between _sex _and _love."_

"Truly? How intriguing. Oghren seemed to imply that they were one and the same thing."

_Maker's breath. That sodding dwarf. _"No. They're not. Don't get me wrong - the two can go together… very well. But they're not the same. Love is an emotion. Sex is a.. " _lot of fun and something I haven't had for far, far too long. _"Sex is something you _do."_

"Is it not necessary to love someone before you have sex with them? The words of Kristoff's marriage vows seem to imply…"

"Now _that _little myth you can thank the Chantry and its priests for," Anders said, somewhat bitterly. "I very much doubt Andraste had much chop with the sanctity of marriage. Or the Maker for that matter, come to think of it…"

"So you can have sex with someone other than your spouse?"

"You _can _yes. Whether or not you _should…" _Andraste's knickers, this was getting far, far to complicated. "Forget marriage for the moment. It's not important." Justice looked about to argue but Anders held up a hand. "Yes, yes it _is _important, but not to _this _discussion. You can most certainly have sex with someone you don't love. It doesn't… stop things from working, if you know what I mean. But a lot of people believe that sex with someone you love is a lot better. More… rewarding."

"I do not understand. Do you receive gifts for copulation?"

"Maker's balls, Justice, this is not easy to explain."

"I am sorry, Anders. I did not know the question was so difficult."

_Neither did I._

"Let's get back to the question of _love."_

"By all means."

"I…" Anders paused. He had thought, when he brought the conversation back towards love that he would know what to say. But it turned out he didn't. He could say _I loved my mother, _but that wasn't what Justice was asking about. He could say _I love my freedom _but again, that would be inadequate. He could say _last week, I spent an extremely entertaining night with the lovely and skillful Sergeant Maverlies and I hope to the Maker I'll be spending another one like that as soon as we get back to the keep, _but that wouldn't answer the crux of Justice's question. "You know what?" he said finally. "You'd probably be better off talking to the Commander about it."

"Truly?"

Anders took another long drink of his ale. He saw the look in Alim's eyes, whenever the elf - what did Oghren say his name was? _Zevran_ came up in conversation. Remembered the way - before Justice had joined him, Alim had tried so desperately to get information about the Crows who had been sent to kill him. There was something there that Anders wasn't as yet familiar with, and he truly wasn't sure if he wanted to be.

"The Commander knows better than I do," Anders said. "Trust me on this, Justice."

"I shall, Anders," Justice said. "I thank you for attempting to help, in any case."

Anders eyed the man across the table, sitting ramrod straight, still encased in his armour, perfectly still. He shuddered suddenly, thinking of Justice as a blank slate from one of the classrooms in the tower, ready to be overwritten with whatever people chose.

_Maker help him, _he thought. _I wonder who's going to hold the chalk?_


	32. The Cost of Betrayal

The house was small, dark, humble - nothing like what he would have expected. And yet the village was untouched by the war ravaging around it - nestled in the mountains as it was. Whispers of the apostates had reached him, so difficult to track, no one was willing to name them, or tell him where they had gone. Not even his most expensive contacts had been forthcoming. In the end he'd had to bribe and cajole those few in the Chantry who were not hiding or desperate. The glass vial they carried had cost more than the most expensive piece in the Starkhaven treasury.

It had been worth it.

He was still skilled enough to break in on his own, but he wasn't prepared for magic, even with his Templar companion. Not prepared for _her _magic, any way, which always had the element of the uncertain about it, as though she'd been half rogue rather than all mage.

The Templar died silently, the poisoned blade sinking into his paralysed flesh, but he… he she spared.

He knew it was her, despite the near pitch-darkness. He recognised the sound of her breath, the scent of her. They had been close, once. Before she'd turned on him. Before she'd sided with _him._

"Sebastian, I knew you'd come."

His eyes could still move, but she was silent, and deathly, and he wanted to know who had taught her these skills when he had not. There was a flare of power and he could move his head, although the rest of him stayed frozen.

"I told you I would."

She snorted. "You told me you'd raise an army against Kirkwall. Did you?"

"No."

"Ah, the things we say in the heat of _hate."_

"I'm here for justice."

The black shadow that was her moved to sit in a chair by the dying embers of a fire. It didn't give enough light to show her face, but he caught the glint of red in her hair as she rested her chin on her chest. She chuckled.

"You won't find any here. Or did you mean _Justice? _Have you finally grown brains enough to realise who killed your precious cleric?"

"Do not dare to say her name!" the anger burned bright hot and urgent that she would mention her.

"Elthina!" she spat. "You know, I never told you I thought she might have fallen victim to a demon of _sloth."_

"How _dare _you…" she waved a hand and his tongue was suddenly glued to his mouth.

"Be silent," she said. "You abdicated all right to talk to me that day in Kirkwall. I _helped _you. I _trusted _you, and you… you were always ready to stab me in the back for what I _was. _Anders was right."

"Hawke…"

"You came here to kill me."

"I did."

"Kill my husband."

_Husband … _"He still lives then?"

There was a glint of white as she showed her teeth. "Oh yes. He lives."

The surge of anger, of _hate _was so fierce he thought for a moment he would be able to break his bonds, but her magic was sure, and strong. The way it had always been.

"You're a hypocrite, and an idiot," she said, but her voice had lost the sting of a few seconds ago. Instead it held a world of melancholy, and sadness. _What has he done to her? _the pity gripped him, surprising in its intensity. He had to remind himself that _she _was as much at fault as her…_husband. _"Anders paid for his crime. A thousand times over, he paid. He was paying before it even happened, and he will continue to pay until he dies. A simple death - a clean death - what you offer him? Would have been a reward."

"He still needs to die."

Light filtered into the room from a doorway behind him. "As my wife said, you truly are a hypocrite, Sebastian. At least Fenris cursed me to my face. You dressed it up with trying to save me."

The light was coming _from _him, in blue waves interspersed with darkness. His eyes, though, were still human. That's how Sebastian knew it was the man, not the demon, who spoke.

The bonds were secure. Hawke would not let him free to kill the man she loved. The _abomination. _The _murderer._

"What are you going to do to me?"

"A few years ago I might have killed you," Anders said, and his voice was light-hearted now, in direct contrast to the hard, fierce look Hawke was giving him from the chair by the fire. Her face had lines he didn't remember, and there was something else… something he couldn't quite place. Anders, however, stepped in front of her, _his _face - so kind, even after all he'd done - tilted to one side, as though Sebastian was a patient in his clinic, someone with a disease the apostate could cure.

"And now?"

"Give me the phylactery," Anders said, holding out one long fingered hand, "and I'll let you go."

"Anders…" _she _didn't want to forgive him. Of the two, he would never have thought that _her _desire for vengeance would be greater than his.

"No," Sebastian said. His voice firm. He would not give up the only thing that had got him this far.

Anders shrugged. "Well. Considering I know you don't have it, it doesn't really matter," he flashed a grin at Sebastian before kneeling by the body of the Templar. "Did you have to kill him, love? Templars are in short supply these days."

Hawke smiled, a sly look with enough heat in it to make Sebastian blush. His vows were still intact, no matter how much he'd been tempted to break them. _With her._

"Automatic reaction, Anders," she said softly. "I'm acting on instinct a lot these days."

The blond man clicked his tongue as he searched the body, standing up with the faintly glowing vial in his fingers. "Maker's breath," he said, matter-of-factly. "Do you know how often I've dreamed of holding this in my hands? You have my thanks, Sebastian, for bringing it to me. It must have cost you a pretty penny."

"I would have paid anything," he spat. "Anything to see you dead."

The man's eyes flashed blue and Sebastian braced himself for his own death, but the voice that emerged, though booming and obviously not Anders' own, was simply sad.

"Vengeance serves no purpose, Prince of Starkhaven," Justice said. "You would do well to abandon it." With those words, there was another flare of power, and the vial with its contents was consumed, crumbling to ash and dust. "Now leave us."

The green glow of magic surrounding him was extinguished and Sebastian reached for his bow, thinking to strike now while he had the chance. But there was another flare of power and his bow dropped from his fingers, white hot. It lay on the floor of the house, radiating heat but still whole.

"One templar would never have been enough," Hawke said softly, and her voice had an element of sadness to it now, too. She stood, moving to Anders' side, taking his hand in hers. And standing, he could see what had been concealed when she was in the chair by the fire. "For the sake of all we shared, Sebastian. Go. Don't make us kill you."

"Holy Andraste," he breathed. "You would trust him… with this?"

She laid a hand on her belly. "I would trust him with anything, Sebastian. Will you kill us now? Or try to? Rest assured I have no compunction about striking you dead. You have threatened me and my family for the last time."

He backed towards the door, panic welling in him. Why it should make a difference, that she was carrying his child… the child of a _murderer…_ he wasn't sure, but to kill her now…

He stumbled out of the door and into the night, mind reeling, without purpose.

Defeated.


	33. All That Remains

She tilts her head to one side, considering, puzzled. "He's a man," she says calmly.

"Love?" he comes up beside her, looking down at the corpse on the floor. His voice sounds uncertain, even to his own ears. He has no idea what she is thinking.

"He's not possessed. He wasn't a demon. It's… just a man."

"Yes," she feels his hand on her arm. "Saoirse, we should go."

She doesn't respond to his gentle pull, but kneels down beside the corpse, touching the cloth of his robes, studying the face in repose. For a moment, she seems almost calm, then a frantic energy overcomes her. She tears at the robes, ripping them from the body, picking up the hands of the corpse, tugging off rings and an amulet and studying them each in turn before throwing them to the side.

"It's all _normal," _she says. "There's nothing, _nothing, _here."

He's afraid to touch her, afraid to talk to her in her frenzy. He glances back to see Fenris and Varric, staring, wide eyed and silent. Not even the elf has anything to say. Spouting bullshit about mages wouldn't help, not here, not now, and Anders is glad the former slave is executing restraint for once. She's stopped stripping the corpse now, and instead she's searching the shelves behind him, the tables. "It's rubbish," she shouts, and he feels a ripple in the fade. She pulls books off the shelves and throws them to the floor, picks up a glass beaker and shatters it against a wall.

"Varric, Fenris, get out of here, now," he hisses behind him.

"But she…" Fenris' voice grates on his nerves, now more than ever. Can't they _see? _But they don't have the connection to the fade that he does, they don't understand that she's losing control. And if Fenris gets even a _hint _of that he has no doubt the damned elf will have no compunction about cutting his love down. No matter what stupidity he's spewed at Anders about _not hurting her. _

"Varric, get him _gone." _The dwarf grabs the elf's arm.

"Come on, elf. We can't do anything here."

"I do not believe leaving Hawke with _him…"_

"Do a dwarf a favour and display some of your trademark stoicism, would you? We need to be gone. Right now."

He doesn't stop to check that they've left. The ripples in the fade are getting stronger. She's pulled down all of the books now, turned over the tables, the mess is everywhere. She hasn't looked back at what remained of her mother. Not once. He thinks he understands. She has a desperate need for _answers. _Answers that aren't there.

And the demons are noticing.

"There's nothing _here!" _she screams, fists clenched at her side. He steadys himself, readying his power. She'll need to be shut down quickly, but the last thing he wants to do now is betray her trust. Justice squirms within him, angry for her, with her, he knows that part of him wants to burn the place as badly as she does, but he manages to hold it back, because this is _Saoirse _and she talked him down from doing something he would never have been able to live with himself for, and he knows she would want him to do the same.

Fire has started to lick across her hands. "Nothing," she says, almost calmly now. But the power, _her _power lashes out. It's fire, always fire her first resource, and suddenly the room is wreathed in flames.

In two quick steps he's reached her and activated the shield, encompassing them both. The power is rampant, she's released it into the room and there is no calling it back, but he wraps his arms around her and pulls her to him, despite her struggles, despite her anger. He is still the stronger and he can still stop her from breaking out of the circle he's surrounded them in. He sinks to the ground, simply holding her, waiting for the fire to ease, keeping the shield steady. He will not see her burnt to a crisp in the chaos she has created, the funeral pyre for her mother and the women that monster has killed.

He prays to Justice to use whatever influence he has to help him keep the demons back, the ones that can sense the rage in her, and for once Justice bows to his will and the voices and pressure ease enough for him to stand, still holding her thrashing and kicking in his arms.

"He was a _person!" _she screams, turning into him now, pounding her fists on his chest. "How could he _do _this?"

Her struggles are easing now, and he cups her head into his chest and murmurs into her hair, meaningless words, just to be certain she can hear his voice. It's hot now, even inside his shield, and they have to get out before it falters. There's no oxygen in here any more, and if they weren't surrounded in shimmering light they would have suffocated.

He walks to the exit as she falls limp in his arms, sobbing now, but quietly. The fire behind them burns out with cracks and pops. He glances back as they reach the door and there is nothing left in the room but ash.

* * *

Later that night, he finds her in her room. _Their _room, he has to remind himself, although he can still scarce believe she has welcomed him there. She is sitting on the bed, staring into the fire. He approaches slowly, worried not that she'll lash out, the rage has passed and there is no more danger, but that she'll push him away, tell him she doesn't need him.

"I know nothing I say will change it. I'm just… I'm sorry. You were lucky to have her as long as you did. When the pain fades, that's what will matter."

"I didn't try hard enough to save her," she says, and her voice is completely flat and cold. Fear clutches at his heart. Seeing her like this upsets his world. Things are not in balance if she is so close to despair.

"She wouldn't want you to blame yourself," he says.

She snorts, a ghost of her old smile flashing before tears well in her eyes. "You don't know my mother."

He remembers her telling him once, how her mother had accused her over the corpse of her sister of causing Bethany's death. But people say things in the heat of grief, things that cut deep and hard. From what he knew of Leandra, she hadn't meant it.

Yet he would be the first to acknowledge his ignorance of the woman.

"No. And I'm sorry I never will." There is a silence, as she looks at her hands and he looks at her and wants nothing more than to crush her to him and tell her everything will be fine. It won't. It never was. "I'm here for you. Whatever you need." He sits on the bed next to her and waits. For a while, he thinks she's going to tell him to leave, but then her head rests on his shoulder and he feels her shaking. He is all she has left, he realises, and with that thought guilt stabs him through to the core and he feels the part of him that is Justice struggling against what he knows he needs to do. Instead he pulls her into his arms and lets her cry against him, soundless sobs, feeling the moisture from her tears seep into his clothes.

He will make the effort to _be_ that person for her now, the one she needs. He is no good to the cause, not at the moment, but he can be good for _her. _That will have to be enough.

For her, he is all that remains.


	34. Healing Hands

_Written for a BSN Anders thread prompt: The Grey Warden's Return. Since actually writing a meeting between Alim and Anders would be spoilery for fics I'm currently working on, I've written a little discussion between Anders and Saoirse about the former Commander._

_

* * *

_

"Maker curse it," Saoirse was bleeding. Heavily. And she was out of mana.

"We're close to the clinic," she heard Aveline's voice. "Anders is back, last I heard. If we hurry we should be able to get her there.

_Hang on. Anders is back? _Last she'd heard he'd been on one of his mage underground trips - the ones he couldn't tell her about because of her status. She really should visit him if he was back.

Her head swam and she looked down at the blood pouring from the arrow wound in her side. "Now's as good a time as any!" she mumbled through a weak chuckle.

"Surely there are other healers we could…"

"Oh Sebastian, shut up," Isabela drawled. "I'm sure he won't expose your soul to anything demony that your shiny armour can't reflect."

"In any case there aren't any healers near enough," Fenris was saying, as he hoisted her into his arms. So strong, for an elf, her glowing friend. She chuckled again.

"All my friends are blue and glowy," she murmured. "'s nice."

"She's delirious," Aveline said.

"Yet surprisingly accurate!" Isabela said.

"This is no time for joking!" Sebastian said.

"She'll be _fine. _Anders can reattach _limbs, _there's no way he'd let a little thing like an arrow wound kill his beloved Hawke."

_Beloved?_

"I'll… fetch her mother," Seb stuttered. "She'll want to know she's hurt."

"You do that, Seb," Isabela said.

"I'll let the patrols know about this," Aveline said. "You and Fenris get her to Anders. And _fast."_

"Aye aye, _captain!" _Isabela said.

Fenris armour was digging into her shoulder, but she didn't have the energy to ask him to shift her. Her feet and hands were cold. She knew, intellectually, that was a bad sign. The fact that she couldn't actually feel where the arrow had pierced her… that was a bad sign as well.

"Stay awake, Hawke," Fenris said. "I don't want to be on the receiving end of an abomination's anger if we get there too late."

"'s not an abomination, Fenris," she said.

"Awake and deluded, I shall accept," he said.

There was a blur of motion when it was difficult to track who was talking and where she was, then the familiar odour of elfroot and herbs assailed her, coupled with another scent she hadn't smelled for months - that particular scent of _Anders _that she didn't even realise she'd missed until she smelled it again.

"Maker's breath, what have you done to her?"

"I didn't _do _anything, aside from kill the man who shot her, mage. And bring her here for you to heal."

"Put her here. Quickly."

She wanted to say something, tell them not to fight, not now, but she couldn't seem to get her mouth to work. She blinked fuzzily, though, and Anders' face came into focus as she felt the familiar flare of his power. He had dark circles under his eyes and his lips were pressed together in concern and concentration. "You need more sleep," she managed to say. His eyes flicked to her face, and they were wide and full of concern.

"Saoirse, don't talk," he said softly. "You've lost a lot of blood."

"Is that what all that red stuff is?" she blinked, trying to smile. He bit his lip and shook his head, putting one hand to her forehead.

"Humour won't get us anywhere right now," he said, and she felt the surge of power that would put her to sleep, her feeble protests silenced in a wall of black.

When she came to, she was in a room of the clinic she hadn't seen before. The scent of elfroot and, oddly enough, books came to her. She shifted on the cot she was lying on - more comfortable and better dressed than the crude canvas cots in the main clinic, and looked up.

It took her a moment to recognise Anders in the corner of the room, it was dark - only lit by two candles, and he was shirtless, bent over a basin of water. His hair was loose from its perpetual club at the back of his head, and dripped with moisture that ran in droplets down his back - white and lean and clearly showing ribs.

_He really needs to eat more, _she found herself thinking, even as the rest of her started thinking _other _things like _not _too _much more, though, just enough to take away the painful skinniness, _and _maybe it's true about Grey Wardens being stronger than the rest of us, _and _Tits of Andraste, it's been a long time since I've seen a shirtless man…_

She must have made enough noise to startle him, however, because he turned quickly, then. _Oh… so much nicer from the front…_ she had time to think before she noticed the angry red line down one side of his body.

"You're awake," he said.

"State the bleeding obvious, why don't you," she said, smiling. "I thought that was Merrill's job."

He smiled and came to her side, healing magic lighting up his hands as he did so. "It was a nasty wound," he said, kneeling next to the bed and gently pulling back the covers. She was, she noticed, no longer dressed in her robes, but in a linen shift, and she blushed suddenly, wondering how that had happened. He must have caught her expression, because his smile turned into a smirk. "Don't worry, Isabela got you changed for me and cleaned you up."

Her eyes widened. "Maker's breath, I don't think that's any better."

"She promised to tell me all the details later, true," he said, gently touching her side where the arrow had pierced her. "Can you feel that?" he asked.

_Oh Maker, yes, _she thought. His fingers were _warm _through the thin cloth of her shift. So _so _warm. "Yes," she managed to choke out.

"Painful?" he said, gently pressing.

"Not in the way you're thinking," she said, then nearly clamped her hand over her mouth. He raised an eyebrow at that and was she imagining his breath coming a little faster? Maker she hoped not.

"You're delirious," he said. "Don't say anything you might regret later."

"Like what?" she said. He chuckled, but didn't answer, tucking the covers back up under her chin.

"Your mother said you could stay here for the night."

"What am I, _fourteen?"_

"I'm sure she didn't mean it like _that," _Anders grinned. "I mean she didn't think it was worth a trip through darktown, with its inevitable bandit attacks and pools of random vomit, to pick up her sick daughter and take her home, when there was a perfectly good bed available right here."

"It's _your _bed," she said, coming to the sudden realisation that the only bed she'd never seen in the clinic was Anders' own. "Where are _you _going to sleep?"

He sat back on his heels. "I don't need much in the way of sleep, these days."

"Justice never sleeps?" she said, half grinning. But it was the wrong thing to say, because his face clouded and he looked like he was about to leave. She reached out one hand, however, and touched the red line that ran from his shoulder to under the waistband of his pants, wanting just to keep him by her side even if she did say stupid and inappropriate things at the worst times. "What happened here?" she said softly, letting her fingers rest on the scar. His skin was still slightly damp. She had to resist the urge to press her hand flat against him, take in every contour. Instead she lightly traced the line down.

She _didn't _imagine the shiver that wracked him at her touch. He'd gone completely still and he closed his eyes briefly. "Golem," he said, and his voice was hoarse. He captured her hand with one of his and placed it gently back on the cot, standing and moving to the other side of the room. She sat up in the bed, pleased to find there was no lingering weakness in her side, and crossed her legs.

"A golem? From my experience they throw rocks at you, not cut you open…"

"Long story," he said shortly, but there was a smile in his voice. "When I was with the wardens."

"Hey, I'm not going anywhere."

He grinned at her over his shoulder. "The Commander… he had some unconventional healing methods."

"That's right! He was a mage wasn't he?"

"Still is, for all I know," Anders looked troubled, one hand resting on the scar. "We fought a fire golem, in the deep roads. It was… enormous. Took us _forever. _Even with Alim's affinity for ice magic… by the end of it we were all completely drained. And I was stupid, standing right up behind it when Oghren knocked it's feet out from under it."

"It _fell _on you?"

Anders nodded, his long fingers tracing the scar again.

"Why didn't you just heal it? You wouldn't have had the scar then."

"Out of mana," Anders said. "Alim had to do it. Not that I remember, of course. I was passed out by that stage. Well and truly."

She frowned. Regular mage healing didn't leave scars like that. "Why…"

"Alim healed it with blood magic," Anders said shortly. "That's why there's a scar."

"The hero of Ferelden…"

"Is a blood mage. Yes."

She frowned at him. Anders was standing still in the middle of the room, a frown on his face. All the things he said, all the arguments he made against Templar control… he _despised _blood magic.

"I thought you were friends with him?" she said finally. _Why are you so mean to Merrill if your closest friend does the same thing? _she didn't voice that question.

"It's my fault," Anders said then. "Alim _wasn't _a blood mage before that fight. The wardens don't forbid blood magic. Anything it takes to win against an archdemon. I've… never had to face one, never will thanks to Alim, but he never turned to it, not even on the roof of Fort Drakon. No. The thing that made him do a deal with a demon…" Anders pointed to his chest. "Was this."

"He did it to heal you," she said. In the back of her head, she was wondering if she wouldn't do the same thing. If Anders was down, bleeding, dying, if _any _of her friends were dying and she had the means to save them, would she be able to say no?

"He should have let me die."

"Would you have let _him _die?" _Would you let me?_

Anders shut his eyes. "I was a warden then," he said. "I thought we were safe, Alim and I. We weren't."

There was an uncomfortable silence.

"If the Chantry ever got wind of this…"

"King Alistair would be deposed in a second," Anders said. "Alim was chancellor there for quite some time before he took the post of Warden Commander. And the Chantry wouldn't believe him if he said he took up blood magic _after _his time there. They tried to assassinate him once, you know, and they didn't even think he was a blood mage. Just a mage. Just an elf. Just everything they hate without reason." Anders looked at his hands, then seemed to realise that he was still damp from washing. He turned back to the basin. "They nearly killed his lover in that attack," he said. "Alim was never much for Chantry services after that."

"You don't hate him for being a blood mage?"

Anders sighed and shook his head. "He was circle trained, same as me. I first saw him when he was eight years old, crying for his mother. He used to hit on me, in the Tower, whenever I got back from an escape attempt." Anders grinned a wistful grin that made her wish she had known him before. "I always turned him down. Used to _infuriate _him."

"Was that a yes or a no?"

"It was a no. I could never hate him. But sometimes I wish I'd died in that cavern." He turned back to her, pulling a shirt over his head. "You should sleep," he said. She sat up in the bed, however, and shook her head, crossing her legs.

"I've slept enough. And this is an interesting story. If it wasn't likely to destabilise the Ferelden monarchy I'd say you should tell it to Varric and get it written down."

Anders snorted. "Varric would make it into some sort of action serial. Alim would love it."

"Is it Justice who hates blood magic, or you?"

His eyes flashed blue for a moment. "Do you still not believe me when I say the two of us are one?"

She raised an eyebrow at him. "I'm reserving judgment until I get my own fade spirit," she said. He drew in a breath in an almost laugh.

"Oh, please, don't go experimenting on my behalf. Although perhaps Justice would have been better off with you, you're not so angry all the time."

"You're the least angry person I've ever met."

"Little do you know me."

She waved a hand, "Righteous anger at the Templars doesn't count," she says. "It's _righteous."_

"You can't know how much I wish you were right." He sat next to her on the cot. She had to resist the urge to lean her head on his shoulder. Instead she found his hand with hers and squeezed it.

"So, are you going to sleep with me here then?"

He looked at her, eyes suddenly dark. His fingers tightened on her hand for a second before he pulled it back.

"Plenty of cots out in the clinic," he said, and she could tell he was forcing his voice light.

She hugged her elbows and smiled sadly. "Not as comfy as this one."

"….Saoirse, we've talked about this…"

"I think we've talked enough."

He got up. "No," he said firmly, but kindly.

"Fine, fine," she said, waving a hand. "But you're pushing me into the arms of Isabela, I hope you know that."

"Very capable arms they are," he said, leering a little. "And with that image, of course, you've made sleep for me completely impossible. I'll see you in the morning."

"You don't need to blame yourself for everything, Anders," she said.

"Just the things I'm responsible for," he said, with a sad grin.

She hugged herself tighter as she watched him go.


	35. Cover

_Credit to Terry Pratchett for the two songs in this short._

_

* * *

_

"I think she's had enough," Anders tries to hold Isabela back from the bar, but the pirate swats his hand away.

"Bugger off, Justice. She's had a rough week, a couple of drinks won't kill her. We're _celebrating _here."

Anders doesn't mention that he thinks there isn't much to celebrate. That word has finally reached them of Carver surviving the Joining makes guilt and relief wash through him in equal measure. At least the boy isn't a mage - they're not going to slap a Templar guard on him.

"You should have another too," Isabela says then. He sighs. "Gah, Anders, it's _your _body not his. Overrule him."

"It's _our _body now Isabela."

"You always did like threesomes."

"Please. You're hurting my ears."

"You're no fun any more," she shoves some drinks into his hands and pushes him back towards the table, where Saoirse and Varric seem to be singing a song while Merrill looks on in bemusement.

"It's the one about the hedgehog again," Merrill says to him. He tries to be nice to her, but it's difficult sometimes, with Justice raging in him that she is vulnerable to demons. "I can never understand why it's so fascinating to delve into the…" she blushes.. "habits of wood creatures."

"Just be thankful they're not doing A Mage's Staff has a Knob on the End," Anders says, wishing now that he had taken up the offer of a drink.

"Your staff is quite knobby, Anders," Merrill says. "Why would you want to sing a song about it though?"

He laughs. If he can convince himself to forget about the blood magic thing, Merrill is hilarious. The man he used to be would have spent a lot of time trying to seduce her.

The man he is now, however, can barely tear his eyes away from Saoirse. Her cheeks are flushed, her lips parted in a smile that hurts his heart to see. The months after they'd brought Carver to the wardens had eaten away at her. She'd lost nearly all of her humour, a lot of her weight. Dark circles had appeared under her eyes and she'd been aggressive and careless with her power. On more than one occasion he'd shown up at the mansion in hightown to find her gone with no word, and Leandra had begged him to look for her. He'd always find her, usually here, in Varric's company, or Isabela's, and she would be manic, trying so hard to pretend it hadn't happened, that she didn't blame herself.

This was different. She was giddy with relief, and he was happy for her, but worried for Carver, big, ignorant thickhead that he was. And for her, when she found out (as she would have to if she ever saw him again) exactly how much of her brother had died in the Joining.

He sits at the table and has a partially successful time enjoying himself for a while. He is anxious, though. He has to go out again tomorrow - four more mages to take through the sewers, and he knows there are at least two patients in the clinic he can't hope to save - _stupid Fereldens and their stupid pride, if they'd come to him earlier…_ and seeing her so bright and happy should make him feel better but instead it's making him _wish _and _want…_

"Blondie," Varric's voice is high and urgent and cuts through the revelry like a knife. He _knows _that tone, and leaps to his feet, grabbing Saoirse's arm as he does so.

"Anders, wha?" she looks at him blearily as he pulls her to her feet and hustles her towards the stairs at the back. "This is sudden!"

Isabela has cornered Merrill at the bar, although much to his chagrin the elf girl is probably safe. She was right when she said the Templars ignored her as one elf among many. And she doesn't drink. Saoirse, however, is leaking power and the Templars who have just come in will feel it any second unless he can…

He pushes her into the wall and casts dispel on her as subtly as he can, draining away her mana and suppressing it, even though it makes him feel over full, as though he's had too many lyrium potions. The world gets a little brighter and he feels lightheaded and part of him _loves _it. Maker it's been too long since he's done anything approaching fun like that - the last time would have been with Oghren before Roland turned up, when they thought the new Commander was a stick in the mud who would never….

Saoirse is giggling. "Why do you have me pressed up against the wall of the Hanged Man, Anders?" she says, her eyes coy as she looks up at him. "I thought we _talked about this…"_

He groans and closes his eyes. Of course she would… "Templars," he hisses. She giggles. _Giggles. _"Maker damn it, Saoirse, don't make it difficult…"

She giggles again and he feels it like a shot to his groin. He remembers when he _loved _making girls giggle. He remembers when heloved making _men _giggle. He's remembering _far too much. _She's taller than most of the girls he's been with, her eyes are level with his lips and it's far, _far _too easy for her to reach his neck and she does so, breathing into it in a way that is _incredibly _erotic and his hands clench at her arms even as he struggles desperately against the urge to crush her to him and kiss her senseless.

_This _behaviour, at least, is not likely to attract Templars. It's the best possible cover, really, given how repressed most of them are. But it's _dangerous. _So, so dangerous for him to be this close to her, breathing in her scent, feeling the heat of her breath and the press of her body against his too thin coat. She is kissing him now, her arms have wound around his neck and her lips are busy at his neck. He can feel the tip of her nose scraping over the skin just behind his ear and it is the best kind of torture.

"Saoirse, _please _stop," he gasps out.

"Have to keep up the cover," she whispers.

"You'll regret this."

"Is that a threat?"

He gently pushes her head back away from him and she lets it fall against the wall, smirking at him, but in her eyes is a combination of hurt and lust and compassion that makes his gut twist.

"Is he so against it?" she asks softly.

"It's not him," he says, reaching up and tucking a lock of hair behind her ear without thinking and it's such an affectionate gesture that he wants to snatch his hand back because he can see the light in her eyes as he does it and he would do _anything _to see that light again, and again, and every day until the day he dies and he _can't._

If he could show her, now, what he did, if she could see the corpses, watch as he tore them to pieces with his hands and teeth, _then _she would run. The closer he gets to her, the more likely she _will _see it. He needs to leave, get out of Kirkwall, go somewhere where he can be….

_No. I have a duty. _He clenches his eyes shut.

"I can take care of myself, Anders," she is saying. "I'm not helpless. I know what it means to have power and not be able to use it."

"You don't know what I've done," he whispers, and feels a hand on his shoulder. Varric.

"They're gone, Blondie," the dwarf says, and Anders steps back from her, equal parts relief and longing washing through him. She is pouting. It doesn't help.

"I have to get back to the clinic," he says. Varric raises an eyebrow at him. "Have another drink for me. Make sure she doesn't set the place on fire."

He can feel her eyes on him all the way to the exit. Outside, he has to lean his head against the wall in the cool air for a good minute before he can gather the will to walk back to darktown.


	36. Envy

"I need to go and check on Anders first," she said. "I think he's been avoiding us since the…"

"Incident when he almost killed someone?" Fenris said, leaning against the fireplace.

She shot the elf a narrow eyed look. Fenris merely raised an eyebrow and Saoirse rolled her eyes. "Sebastian, I'll be happy to talk with the Grand Cleric on the way back if you want."

"That would be fine, Hawke. I don't think Elthina expected you to turn up immediately."

The tense set of Saoirse shoulders confused him a little. He didn't understand why she seemed to dislike Elthina so much - the Grand Cleric had been nothing but kind to her, but every time they talked Saoirse always managed to choke out something sarcastic and offensive that made Sebastian wince, if she didn't outright ask the woman to fix the mage situation.

That abomination of hers had too much influence over her. He caught Fenris' eye. "We'll come with you," he said. "After last time I don't think you should be wandering around Darktown on your own."

She pulled on her ear. "I really need to get that cellar entrance unblocked," she mused, then shook her head. "Fenris has Sandal finished with your sword?"

The elf nodded.

"Fetch it then, we'll go directly. I just need to…" she touched her hair and her eyes took on a faraway look… "fix my hair."

Something dark and dangerous growled in Sebastian's chest. When he looked back at Fenris, the elf had a knowing smile on his face.

At the clinic the mage was nowhere to be seen at first. It was crowded, Fereldens everywhere. Sebastian found himself next to a cot that held a heavily pregnant woman, her husband kneeling on the ground next to her. "Are you a priest?" the man said, when he caught him looking. Sebastian inclined his head and raised a hand in habit.

"Maker's blessing on you," he said softly.

The man snorted. "Fat lot of good that'll do," he muttered. Sebastian backed away and turned around to see that Saoirse had found Anders and was talking to him. The man looked far more cheerful than was warranted, given his recent activities, and Saoirse seemed to be enjoying whatever conversation they were having. He took a few steps towards them, meaning to ask her to hurry up as Elthina was undoubtably waiting for them, when it happened.

Anders lunged for Saoirse, gripping the back of her head hard and devouring her mouth with his. Sebastian felt his jaw drop. He wanted to cry out to her, make it stop, please no, not _him, _not _here, _but it was obvious Saoirse was enjoying it as much as Anders and her hands came up to clutch the mage closer to her.

_In the middle of a crowded clinic. In front of everyone. In front of ME. How could she do this?_

When Anders finally pulled back he kept his arms around her, talking earnestly. Her cheeks were flushed and her mouth still parted as she nodded to whatever the mage was saying. Sebastian knew he should turn away, not watch, but he couldn't bring himself to. She looked so beautiful.

"Come, Sebastian," Fenris' voice was firm. Sebastian felt heat rush to his face. "We can wait for Hawke outside."

He kicked at a stone outside the clinic. Fenris was leaning against a wall, arms crossed over his chest with that infuriating look on his face.

"So, is it your vows to the Chantry that are stopping you returning to Starkhaven?" Fenris said.

"In a manner of speaking," Sebastian said, glad for the distraction even if he suspected Fenris was really asking him something _else _about his vows.

"Surely retaking your title and lands is more important."

"Nothing is more important than serving the Maker."

Fenris smirked, and Saoirse chose that moment to come out of the clinic. Her cheeks were still red and her eyes were bright. "The mage isn't coming with us?" Fenris said.

She shook her head, biting her lip, which Sebastian couldn't help but notice was slightly swollen. "Too many patients right now," she said. "And it's not as though Elthina's his favourite person any way. Shall we?"

Sebastian looked back through the open clinic door to see Anders bent over a patient, a soft smile on his lips that made Sebastian clench his fists.

"I'll leave you two to go on your own," Fenris said, pushing off from the wall. "There's someone I need to see."

Saoirse waved a hand. "Sure," she said. "Come on Seb, let's go and see what Elthina wants me for."

He couldn't bring himself to say anything on the walk through Darktown. Saoirse stopped every now and then to talk to someone - he knew she came down here often to give alms and help Anders when she could, and he suddenly realised there were no chantry sisters or mothers here. None at all. In all the time he'd been coming down here, since he first arrived in Kirkwall, he'd never seen a single one of them ministering to the refugees. He frowned and made a mental note to talk to Elthina about it. Neglecting the spiritual needs of these people could be dangerous.

"You're all dark faced and broody, today, Seb," Saoirse said as they reached the streets of Hightown. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," he said. "I'm fine."

"Not contemplating revenge again? I thought we'd sorted that all out."

He forced a smile. "Of course not, Hawke."

"Desire demons plaguing you?" she looked over her shoulder at him and grinned, so perky and cheerful that it took a lot of effort for him not to sink deeper into a black mood. _The Maker operates in mysterious ways, Sebastian, _he said to himself. _He will show her she is wrong. Before that monster can harm her._

"Prayer and contemplation has helped me come to terms with that," he said. "I am no longer troubled by it. Elthina says we are all vulnerable to the spiritual manifestations of sins, it is nothing to be ashamed of."

Her grin faded a little. "You really believe everything she says, don't you?" she said. "You were too young when you went to the Chantry, Sebastian. I wish your father had let you live a little first."

He grinned. "Oh, I did my living, Hawke, don't you worry. I was foolish then."

"Do you think the rest of us are foolish?" she said. "For not dedicating ourselves to the Chantry?"

"You dedicate yourselves to other things," he replied. "Well, most of you do."

She looked thoughtful. "That's true," she said. "Haven't you ever wished to… you know… dedicate yourself to something else instead?" The tone of voice makes his breath go faster and he has to force himself to remember that she's just let that _mage…_ no, best not to dwell on what the mage and she had been doing.

He concentrated on the question, finding, surprisingly, that he is still conflicted. "The people of Starkhaven, perhaps," he muses. "But I am unsure if that's a desire from my life before or something I want now." He looks at his hands, remembering again the lure of the desire demon's offer. Power, the sort of power that his father had wielded, had once seemed so attractive. But he knew now, that what had been attractive about it was the trappings. Seeing Kirkwall now, the things that the Viscount had to deal with on a daily basis, watching Elthina attempt to minister to her flock… "I think I do more for the people of Kirkwall as a priest than I could ever do for the people of Starkhaven as a Prince." She cocked her eyebrow at him, and again there was that tension in her look. Was it because she was a mage, that she was so… hesitant about the Chantry and the Maker? "Tell me, Hawke, do you _believe _in the Maker? I don't think I've ever asked you."

Her eyes went cagey and she pursed her lips. "He hasn't done anything for me personally lately," she said, and although her tone was light, he could tell she was troubled.

He cursed himself. Of course. Bethany. Carver. If _that mage _hadn't gone with them to the deep roads she'd be an only child now.

"I am sorry, Saoirse," he said. "I didn't mean to bring up old wounds."

She waved a hand. "Hey, I've got a mansion and a dog and my own personal crazy dwarf enchanter. I can't complain."

He smiled at her. She smiled back and started up the steps to the Chantry. He watched her for a moment, wondering, hoping, then followed.

_I won't let him hurt her, _he thought to himself. The beginnings of a plan were forming in his head. He hoped Elthina would be quick with whatever she wished of Hawke. Tonight would be busy.


	37. Shame

He is good at blending into shadows. Many, many nights of sneaking out of the chantry, in those days it is dangerous now to remember, and his natural instincts, have made stealth second nature to him, and Darktown is so _easy _to hide in, no matter that he has had to dress differently. The mage works late, the people who come to see him, after all, have no schedule to their illnesses. He is vaguely disgusted by some of the patients he sees the man attend to, although Anders never shows it himself, and Sebastian can't help but feel some admiration for the man, that he would do this, day after day, for nothing but the odd coin these people can spare, cast off clothing, a loaf of bread.

They protect him, he knows that. No Templar would get within fifty paces of this place, unless he had no compunction about slaughtering innocents, and he is certain there are some who wouldn't, but Meredith at least does not let those out on regular patrols in the city.

Still, he is not here to admire him. No matter what he does for these people, he is an apostate, and an abomination, and he will hurt Hawke, if not kill her, if she lets him get close.

When the last of the patients is gone, Anders extinguishes the lamps above the cots and goes into the back room Sebastian knows in which he sleeps. He is gone for a moment, and when he emerges he has changed his shirt and his hair drips moisture which is evaporated with a small puff of magic. The mage ties it back, then rubs his jaw and closes his eyes, seeming to debate something internally before striding out.

Sebastian has a hard time staying out of sight. Anders is naturally paranoid - the man couldn't have been an apostate for as long as he has without it, but Templars aren't as good as Sebastian is, and Sebastian can tell the man is distracted. He hesitates at the steps into Hightown, but after a moment he turns towards her house, and Sebastian knows with even more certainty what is going to happen next.

He should go, now, back to the Chantry. Sleep. Pray. But his feet take a different route, one that he knows well to get to her house, not the way Anders has gone, this will take a little longer, but he still gets there before the mage has entered. Anders is standing at the door, his palms flat against the wood and his head bowed as if in worship. For a moment Sebastian thinks he is using magic, but he isn't. For a minute, two, the man stays that way, before heaving an audible breath and opening the door.

She's left it unlocked for him.

The jealousy that rages in his breast is unworthy of him. That _isn't _why he's here. She could choose whichever man she wished. She could frequent the Blooming Rose every night, sleep with every woman and man in the city and it wouldn't matter. He is here because the mage is an _abomination _and he saw the man nearly kill an innocent he had sworn to protect in the grip of a spirit without reason. He is here to _protect _Hawke.

He is bound by his vows and jealousy is a sin.

No wonder the desire demon saw him as easy prey.

He needs to be inside the house, but he cannot break in. He knows the door is open, but to take advantage of that smacks of the worst kind of hypocrisy, so he knocks, hoping Hawke will not answer, or hoping that she will and prove he was wrong about why the mage is visiting.

It takes a while, but eventually, Bodhan answers the door, dressed for bed. _They don't know he is here with her, _he thinks.

"Master Sebastian!" he says, evidently delighted. "Please come in!"

"Is Hawke here?"

"I believe the mistress is asleep, Mesere."

"Never mind, Bodhan. I needed to… drop something off for her, if you don't mind?"

"Please, come in. Me and the boy were just going to sleep."

"I can let myself out, Bodhan. Don't let me keep you."

"Thank you Mesere," the dwarf waves him in and pads off to his part of the house. Sebastian stands for a moment, in the foyer, unsure exactly what he is doing - why he is here.

He will leave her a letter, he decides, and moves to her writing desk. As he picks up her quill, however, he hears what he thinks is her voice. He almost goes up to the room, until he hears another voice in response.

He can't move. The quill is still in his hand and he is straining with all of his senses to hear more, even as he knows he should stop, drop the quill, leave, but there is a gasp and then a giggle and then…

He stands there for what feels like eternity. The noises get louder and less restrained. She screams _his _name but not even _he _can pretend it's in fear or anger.

He remembers when women did that for him.

He remembers that he has dreamt of _her _doing that for him.

The quill snaps in two. He drops the pieces on the table, turns on his heel and leaves. He will pray tonight, and come back in the morning. The Maker will show him a way to undo this, make her see reason.

_Sweet Andraste I only want her to be safe._

Lying is also a sin.


	38. Decisions

"I don't want you to resist."

She isn't ready for the intensity of his attack, the way his hands grip her head and pull her mouth towards his, the way he devours her, the want and hunger and _need_ in his touch enough to make her knees give out. He pulls back, too soon _oh too soon _and his breath is heaving in his chest. Hers isn't much better. It takes a moment for her to get her eyes to open to see his face - and his eyes are closed as well, his mouth open. All she wants to do is pull him back down to her and continue what they were doing, but a glance to the side shows her a few patients looking up curiously, one woman with an undeniable smirk on her face, another with stern disapproval. Not to mention she's completely forgotten she'd come in here with Seb… _and _Fenris.

_Oh maker, Saoirse. You are a complete donkey._

"This is a disaster," he says finally, but smiles as he says it, making her heart thud even more powerfully against her ribs. "But I can't live without it. We could die tomorrow. I don't want it to be before I tell you how I feel…"

His eyes are fixed on her face, searching for something, desperate and wanting. She doesn't understand for a moment, how much feeling is there, because she isn't used to seeing it, and she knows what he wants her to say.

"I've never felt this way about anyone," _I love you. _

His eyes crinkle at the edges, and despite the gravity of his words, she can hear a lightness in his tone she's not heard often. Only Varric and Isabela have managed to bring it out in him, on nights at the Hanged Man, when he reminisces about his time as a warden, or his brief bouts of freedom between escapes.

Or talks about his cat.

"I thought… with Justice… this part of me was over. I can't give you a normal life. If you're with me, we'll be hunted… hated… the whole world will be against us. If your door is open tonight I will come to you. If not… I'll know you took my warning at last."

* * *

At home, she paces her room. Tonight is such a vague word. Is he going to appear as soon as the sun goes down? Will he turn up on the doorstep? Just stepping out of the clinic on his own is a danger these days, she isn't blind to the fact that the Templars ignore him when he's with her because she is Hawke, because she is a person of influence… what if she's inadvertently managed to get him captured? The thought of him in the Templars' hands, after all they'd done, after all he'd told her, makes her blood boil in her veins. If they take him, she will burn them all, be damned the consequences.

She will not lose him the way she'd lost Bethany, and Carver... It would be worse, even, if they caught him. She isn't blind to the fact that if they managed to catch him alive (and oh, how much more they would want to do that, after all he had done) they would be merciful enough to kill him. It would be the brand. And someone like Alric would give it to him. And someone like Alric would take pleasure in using him, every day, simply for the crime of existing and wishing to be free.

When he walks in the door her knees go weak with relief - or is it desire? She isn't certain. Certainly, by the time he's walked halfway across the room she is throbbing with three years of suppressed want, no matter what she'd done with Fenris, she'd never _wanted _as much as when he was in the room.

"You're here," she manages to get out, Maker knows how. "I wasn't sure you would come."

"Justice does not approve of my obsession with you. He believes you are a distraction. It's one of the few things on which he and I disagree."

"If you hadn't come I'd be out looking for you."

He talks about the Tower, about how love is a game, about how Templars will take everything from you if they only get the chance and she steps in closer, wanting to pull him to her, but he looks so forlorn, so damaged by what they've done to him… _You aren't going to lose me, _she thinks. "This isn't going to fix that," she says. He once told her he would drown them both in blood to keep her safe. She will drown the world in blood to keep them free.

"No mage I know has ever dared to fall in love," he says, cupping her cheek, and she feels a welling of power. He dips his head towards her so she can feel his breath on her lips. "This is the rule I will most cherish breaking," he murmurs, and then those lips are on hers.

Her arms come up and around him, seeking pressure, contact, anything to bring him closer as the kiss deepens. He nudges her lips apart with his tongue and she opens them willingly, gently, nothing like the rough need of their kiss in the clinic, nothing like the desperate desire to _feel _she'd shared with Fenris, when she thought Anders would never give in to his desires, when she was trying to erase her feeling for him in another man's arms. This was deeper, more passionate, more of everything, and underneath it all, the hint of magic and the touch of the Fade that made him seem so much more alive than any of her other companions, that only she could feel because of her own connection to the fade. When they break apart she doesn't want to waste any time, terrified he will change his mind and try to protect her again. She pulls him back to the bed and he sinks down into her arms, kissing her again with such slow, practiced skill that she wonders at him for holding out this long.

Against her thigh, _there _is the evidence of his desire, and she lets out a gasp as she feels it, looking up into his face which holds a slightly sheepish grin. "It's been a long time," he says. "I said I thought this part of me was over."

"Anything _but," _she laughs out, gently moving her hips up against him, delighting to see his eyes drift shut and a shudder pass through him.

"Maker," he breathes. "A long, _long _time."

She plucks at his buckles. "Is this unnecessarily complicated as a defense mechanism?" she asks.

"Uh…Defense mechanism?" he is adorably distracted.

"To stop me from getting into them," she says. "Three years, I've been trying."

He blinks and looks down at his robes. "Oh _these? _Well, actually, they're deceptively complex," he grins and pops some studs. The coat falls open, revealing his shirt, clean, but much mended and thin with wear. She touches it, feels the heat of his skin as he shrugs the coat from his shoulders, the feathers making a rustling sound as they slide to the floor behind him.

"The boots are more complicated though," she says.

"For normal people, maybe," he says, and there is a flare of telekenetic power and the laces are suddenly no longer a problem. He kicks them off, and pulls his shirt over his head, and Saoirse is suddenly aware that she is close to something she has wanted for too sodding long and pulls him down for another kiss, and there is _finally _skin and she is _finally _touching it. She can't get enough, and presses her palms into the small of his back, pulling him closer and closer…

"There's an imbalance here," he murmurs, between kisses. "Which I intend to rectify." His fingers work under her shirt and slip it from her shoulders. "Maker Saoirse," he breathes as he cups a breast in his hand, fingers lightly teasing the nipple. "If you knew how often I've dreamed of doing this…" he dips his head and gently laves her breast with his tongue, making her head tip back and her mouth open in a gasp. _If you knew how often I dreamed of you doing this…_

The rest of her clothes are gone, almost without her knowing it, and there is so much _more _to feel with his long, lean limbs entwined with hers. She wants to latch herself around him, pull him into her, _possess _him, but he is firm and gentle, catching her wrists in one hand and exploring her body with his mouth, tongue and lips driving her into a frenzy of desire. Her power is waxing and waning, and this time he _doesn't _drain her, stop her from expressing it, and hazy light surrounds them, no particular spell, just the raw stuff of the fade, making everything blurry in the lamplight.

He keeps his own power tightly in check. She can feel him straining at the bounds of his control, but his movements never lose their gentle rhythm, not even after he's released her wrists to hold her hips and she can't help but clutch his hair and try to pull him closer to her.

"Sweet Andraste, Anders," she gasps. "There. Oh yes. _Please."_

She feels the beginnings of her orgasm gathering and he enters her with two fingers, never slowing the working of his tongue, pressing up gently, firmly, and she shrieks his name as she comes undone, power flaring, time slowing as gravity pulses around them, extending the moment, slowing everything around them. Anders lifts his head, grinning. "You really must teach me that spell," he says. "Makes my lightning trick seem almost mundane."

She falls back on the bed, gasping for breath, laughing a little as well, remembering Isabela's comment. "My father taught it to us," she says. "And now of course, my mind has made all sorts of associations that I will never be able to unthink. Thank you Anders."

He climbs up and lies next to her on the bed, grin still firmly in place. "Happy to be of service," he says. She smiles at him and puts a hand up to his cheek, feeling the sharp line of his jaw under his stubble. His eyes are liquid in the lamplight, and she suddenly realises she can still feel him, pressing against her thigh, hard and ready. "Mmm. Looks like someone else is in need of servicing," she says.

"Crudely put, but I'm not arguing," he rolls on top of her, dipping his head to kiss her neck. She shivers as he tastes the sweat that has gathered there, feeling him nudge her legs apart with his knees.

"Were you expecting me to turn into a romantic as soon as you saw me naked?" she gasps out as she feels him start to press into her, arching her back and lifting her hips.

"No…" he says, he pulling back and pushing back in slightly - not far enough though, and she groans as he does it again, and again. "I… know you…. well enough not to expect that…"

"You're… teasing," she says.

He nods. "Three years of it… from you… it's only fair you get some of the same."

"You could have _fixed _that…ah… if you'd only _fucking given in…"_

He silences her with a strong thrust, filling her completely and letting out a throaty growl at the same time. He is still for a moment, eyes tightly shut, breath heaving, before he begins to move again and she loses herself to sensation.

It isn't gentle, it isn't slow, and she knows now why he'd taken the time to pleasure her before they'd reached this stage. The _need _in him is breathtaking - she'd caught a glimpse of it when he first kissed her in the clinic, but there is a pool of it so deep that she is frightened suddenly, in the midst of her pleasure, that she won't be able to meet it, that she isn't enough for him.

_Is this what it is, to love two people?_

"Saoirse," he pants, his thrusts growing quicker, ever deeper, more urgent. "Oh Maker, Saoirse."

She lifts her legs and wraps them around his waist, pulling him as deep as she can, wanting somehow, to match his desperation. His power flares and the hands gripping her shoulders are suddenly alive, burning with sensation and she cries out as it shatters brightly across her vision. He lets out a mighty groan and thrusts impossibly hard and she clenches around him, her own climax so fierce she is afraid they've set the bed on fire. He collapses on her and she gently cradles his head in her hands, letting her legs fall back onto the bed as their breaths heave in their chests and their power gently settles back into the fade.

_Was that the lightning trick? _she wants to ask, but doesn't. This isn't the time for one of her smart remarks. He's just given her something that she hadn't even realised was precious to him and she wants to hold on to that moment. When he lifts his head and looks at her, his brown eyes full of feeling, she simply smiles, cupping his jaw, brushing her thumb along his cheekbone. _I love you._

She sleeps for a time. When she wakes up he is still wrapped around her, warm and smooth and hard in all the right places and she lets out a satisfied sigh, thankful at least, that he's not going to run out the door and leave her. She gently untangles herself from his long limbs and pads to the dresser to drink some water, smoothing her hair and touching her neck where there is an obvious bruise. She calls forth a small shot of healing magic, smoothing the mark away. It wouldn't do for her mother to see it.

She looks back to the bed and sees she's been far from gentle herself - scratch marks mar one of Anders' shoulders. He looks so carefree, sprawled on the bed, more peaceful than she's ever seen him awake. She remembers in the deep roads, how troubled his sleep had been with darkspawn so near, and then of the tiny cot in the back room of the clinic where she had spent that one night - a dark, dingy place with nothing of him in it aside from his work - his herbs and his writing.

_What else is there of him? _The circle and the wardens have stripped him bare, and now Justice has pared him down to something that is nothing but a _purpose… "How much of me is left if you strip both those out?"_

She is suddenly aware that she may be the only thing he has ever been able to take for _himself _and she breathes in sharply. His eyes choose that moment to flutter open and his relaxed expression hardens for a moment before his head lifts and he sees her, by the fire. The sheer relief on his face makes her heart pound.

_Oh Maker, Anders. I'm so sorry it took us this long._

He hides the feeling quickly with a lazy smirk that makes her breath quicken, uncurls from the bed and pads over to her. She sighs as he wraps his arms around her waist and nuzzles at her ear.

"I love you," he says. "I've been holding back from saying that. You should have a normal life, not be tied down to a fugitive with no future. But… I don't ever want to leave you."

She smiles, tipping her head back and calling forth a small ball of power in her hand. "A normal life was never really on the cards for me, love," she says, then pokes his rib. "And you're too skinny. Want a sandwich?"

He chuckles. "You'll be an inspiration to generations of romantic poets. And I wouldn't say no to a sandwich."

She leans up and kisses him, then searches for clothing on the floor. It's rumpled, but it's the middle of the night and there's no reason any of the household would be awake. She goes to the kitchen and piles a plate with bread and cheese and apples - then notices pork pies and grabs two of them as well. It wouldn't hurt for Anders to have a proper meal.

He is sitting on the bed cross-legged with a book of hers in his lap when she returns, laden with food. His eyes light up as he sees what she's brought.

"You brought me _pie?" _he says. The look on his face is comically grateful. "I love you sooo much."

She laughs in pleased surprise. "I didn't know pie was a favourite of yours. You never order it at the Hanged Man."

He has grabbed one of the pies and is busy stuffing it into his mouth. "Yes, well. I like _eatable _pies. The ones at the Hanged Man are made out of the rats that drown in the whiskey barrels."

He chews and swallows, sighing happily, leaning his head back against the bedboard and closing his eyes. She simply watches him, drinking in how different he is while still being the same man she loves. Relaxed. Happy.

"I want to keep you there, like that, for the next ten years," she says impulsively. His eyes open and he smirks at her.

"Truly? Because the Templars were sniffing around my place yesterday. It's quite possible I'll need somewhere else to go…"

She raises an eyebrow at him, hope blaring in her chest. After all these years of wanting… is he truly…?

"…would here be a possibility?"

"Permanently?" she knows she sounds squeaky. Why does she always sound squeaky when things are important?

"Well… yes. Um. I thought you might appreciate not having to step over the drunkards in Darktown whenever you want to see me…"

"Uh… I …." his face is hopeful and open and truly, where else _does _he have to go? "Absolutely!" she says.

He puts the pie down on the plate and smiles at her, reaching out a hand to touch her fingers. The jolt of electricity that goes through her has nothing to do with magic.

"For three years I've lain awake every night aching for you," he says softly. "I'm still terrified I'm going to wake up."

She laces her fingers with his and squeezes. "I love you," she says.


	39. Tomorrow

She moved so fluidly when she was fighting. It was like watching a dance - or what he imagined a dance would be like - rather than the stilted awkwardness he'd had to go through on their visit to Denerim for the Princess's birthday, all the nobles trusses up in their finery that was in its own way far more confining than armor.

Armor he preferred. Armor was his life - had always been his life, since the moment he and his father had walked in on Saoirse and Bethany doing magic and he'd been firmly stuck in his place as the "other" Hawke child - the one without magic. The one who might have had a normal life, if he'd been born to anyone other than Malcom and Leandra Hawke...

Two swords. He was still amazed that she could even lift the two together, she was so tiny. But the frame belied the wiry strength beneath - the muscle and sinew he could feel beneath her skin when she slid against him at night, sweat slicked and panting.

He almost closed his eyes as the memory tried to take over, but that would mean missing the show she put on now for his eyes - she didn't know he was there, there were enough wardens present in the fields and buildings around them so her better senses were effectively blinded and he could simply watch, enjoying that she was there - that they both were, and that they were alive, for all their taint, for all the magic and blood magic and spirits that seemed determined to make things more complicated when all he wanted was this - more of this and more again - the sun on their skin and purpose that was more than just that of - the other Hawke.

She'd never looked at him that way. Not even when she found out whose brother he was. He'd always been the First Hawke to her, and he knew it was childish and petty for that to be one of the reasons he loved her but hey, being childish had never stopped him before.

And in any case, this particular brand of childish was one he kept to himself. There were a lot of years between the Carver who'd thrown his dead sister in the face of his living one in a fit of pique and the one who had been made lieutenant of the Ferelden wardens. He was man enough to admit when he'd been an arse. At least to himself any way.

Something must have alerted her to his presence. A shift in the population of wardens at the keep, or that ability she had sometimes just to _know _when he was around that made his belly warm. She grinned, that amazing, half grin she had when she _knew _he was thinking lascivious thoughts and sheathed her swords, wandering over with a decided swing in her hips.

"Carver Hawke," she said. "Were you _watching _me?"

He shifted from one foot to the other in embarrassment. "What if I was?" he said. "I still don't understand how you can use two swords like that. They're too sodding _heavy…"_

She laughed. "Tiny and terrifying," she said, flexing one arm. It was considerably more muscular than any women he'd ever had the privilege of seeing bare armed in the past.

Not that that was a long list.

"What are you lurking out here for any way?" she said. "I thought you were with Finn in the library going through records."

"I was. Finn got… weird and technical with me and I ran. You know how it is," he grinned, sheepishly. She sighed, obviously a bit irritated that he'd walked out on what was supposed to be educational for him and useful for her complex plans. He held up his hands. "Seriously, Kahr, I was getting in his way. And this… was much more interesting." He let his voice dip slightly on the last, stepping closer, enjoying the slight flush he could only just make out under her tanned skin.

"Do you… do you come out here often? To watch?"

He smirked, enjoying the feeling of having her on the back foot for once. "Part of my duties, to watch the recruits training, Commander," he said.

The Cousland Eyebrow shot up and he realised he'd made a misstep. He'd been somewhat flattered to discover she was indeed the jealous type, although she tried very hard to hide it. Symptom of being in command, he suspected. She'd been on her own for a long time before he'd come along.

The stupid Howe and their stupid rules.

He could feel the Hawke scowl try to spread over his face and he shook his head to dislodge it. No need to make this into another misunderstanding. They went about things differently, the Couslands and the Hawkes, and it was taking them longer than he would have liked to discover exactly how to avoid stepping on her buttons.

They _were _working it out though. He'd made a vow, after all. He was _married. _

Part of him _knew _that his favoured method of dealing with her disapproval would stop working eventually. He knew that he should ask her why she was upset, and they should talk about it, and work through it, but the pain of their separation was too fresh in his mind.

Next time, he promised himself, and her, even as he stepped closer and bent his head the considerable distance to reach her mouth with his. She gasped into it and he threaded his hands in her beautiful hair, forgetting why he'd felt it necessary to do this in the first place, which was really the whole point, wasn't it?

"Shall we retire, Commander?" he said breathily, once their lips parted.

"Maker's taint, yes," she said back and he couldn't help the pleased grin that spread over his face any more than he could help the way his arms cupped her under her arse and he hefted her into his arms. Damn propriety, damn the smirk on Sigrun's face as they sped past her to their quarters, there were things that were far, far more important and he was planning on attending to them….

"… Carver Hawke put me the fuck _down!" _she was shrieking as they entered and he did so, unceremoniously dumping her on the bed as he started to fumble with the maker-damned straps on his armour…

"Who designed this stuff, any way?" he growled out. "Surely you can make armour that stays on without so many fucking _buckles…"_

"Language, Lieutenant!" she said, giggling.

"Oh, the Lieutenant is _not _the one who's trying to get you naked right now, Kahr," he said as the breastplate was finally liberated and he started working on his greaves and gauntlets.

"Let me help you," she said. "I'm more used to it."

He grunted, but surrendered himself to her ministrations. She _had _been wearing the armour for longer than he had, after all. She was cheeky with her fingers, letting her touch trail along skin that she knew from experience was sensitive to her sword-calloused fingers, and by the time the last piece of his plate was discarded on the floor he was panting with need.

And she was still fully clothed, damn her.

"How did _that _happen?" he growled as he bowled her back towards the bed. She grinned and pulled off her shirt, and he was thankful to the maker she hadn't been sparring with recruits and wasn't in her Commander's plate.

"Easily fixed," she said, but he didn't hear, because there was an expanse of skin exposed that he couldn't stop himself from palming, his large pale hand contrasting starkly with her duskiness - and he let out a small groan of need at its decadence.

"Maker," he breathed as he leaned forward, pressing himself against her. She was tiny compared to him, but lithe and strong and apt at any point to wrap her arms and legs around him and _show _him exactly how she'd cut a swathe across Ferelden during the Blight, how she'd quelled demons and werewolves and dragons…

…and him.

He pressed his lips to her forehead, her cheek, her neck and gloried when she threw her head back and exposed her throat. He nipped and licked his way down to her breast, while one hand was busy at the ties of her trousers, reveling in every sigh and moan he managed to wring from her.

_My wife, _he thought, slipping his hand into her trousers and finding her ready for him.

They moved together for a time, gasps and moans and sensation making the present - _here, now - _the only thing that mattered. When they finished, and lay, panting in each other's arms, she fell asleep, so suddenly and completely that he knew she'd been deliberately exhausting herself on the practice field.

He curled himself around her, stroking her hair, listening to her breathe.

There were problems and work and wardens and revolutions hanging over them, but they would deal with it tomorrow. Everything could be put on hold because right now _this _was what mattered.


	40. Beautiful

He opened the door to the mansion to find Isabela leaning against the doorframe, facing away from him. He took the opportunity to run his eyes along her generous curves before she spun around, smiling brightly and pushing past him inside.

"I believe it is customary to wait to be invited inside another person's home, Isabela," he said dryly.

She waved a hand. "Oh, I can't be waiting the weeks it'll take for a message from Tevinter to get back to me, sweet thing," she said, smiling and walking straight up into his bedroom.

He growled under his breath, having to walk briskly to catch up to her. His years as a slave had made him unused to privacy, and what he had he jealously guarded. "What brings you here?"

"Hawke, actually," she said. Fenris rolled his eyes.

"What does the man want _this _time?"

Isabela smiled a secretive smile and reached into her cleavage, pulling out a small, well worn book. _"He _doesn't want anything. He doesn't even know I'm here." She moved, with catlike grace, to one of the worn chairs in his room and sat, crossing one long, brown, booted leg over the other and wiggling into the high back, looking for all the world as though she belonged there.

"You are not making sense," he said, sighing.

She held up a finger and waggled it at him. "Hawke mentioned he's been teaching you how to read," she said.

"Fasta vass," he swore, nostrils flaring. "Hawke has no business discussing things I divulged to him _privately_ with _you."_

"Relax, sweet thing," she said. "It's not as though we're living in the midst of some hallowed Orlesian monastery. And I'm a _pirate. _I'm lucky if my first mate knows how to scratch marks in wood, not being able to read is nothing to be ashamed of."

"I _can _read," he spat. "Now."

She smiled. "Then Hawke is a far better teacher than I would have given him credit for."

Fenris muttered under his breath in Arcanum. "It is not necessary for me to learn poetry to recite while I slaughter slavers or gang members, Isabela," he said.

She caressed the spine of the small book she carried. The motion of her hand was sensuous - much as everything she did had a not-so-subtle undercurrent of sex - but this motion - this one was also full of potential.

He felt heat unfurl in his stomach, realising that his eyes were fixed on her hand and that one delicate eyebrow was arched as she took in the angle of his gaze.

"Words are so much more than a tool to be used, Fenris," she said. "Hawke would have taught you enough so you could read signs and cooking recipes. _He _doesn't understand the true power in them."

"And you do?"

She practically _purred. _"Words can set you _free _Fenris."

"Pfah. You're beginning to sound like the abomination."

Her laughter came full and hard, the way it always did. Infectious and genuine and utterly beautiful. "Shit, Fenris," she said. "You really know how to insult a girl. Why don't you come over here and sit on my lap? I've got a book that might change your mind about the nature of _words."_

He eyed her suspiciously. "Why on earth would I sit on your lap, Isabela?"

"I'm going to read to you," she said. "And if I'm _very, very _lucky, after a while, you might even consider reading to me."

"Why does this necessitate me sitting on your lap?"

She opened her mouth, then closed it, eyes suddenly bright and full of something he couldn't place. "Oh," she said softly. "Of course. You wouldn't know." He frowned at her but she shrugged and sat forward. "It doesn't matter. But if you sit near me you can watch the words while I read. It will help you learn faster."

He sighed. He had intended training this evening - his foolishness on the battlefield a few days ago had ended in being subjected to healing by the abomination and he did not wish that to occur again. But there was something… almost fragile in Isabela's eyes as she sat there, waiting for his response, and he could not deny that the candlelight playing on her dark skin, lightly sheened with sweat from the humid summer air was pleasing.

He sat on the arm of her chair. There was no other way he would be able to see what she was reading. Isabela looked up at him and grinned, tapping the book with one finger, the jewelry clinking together with the satisfying sound of real gold.

He tilted his head and sounded out the title. "The… Petals of … " his eyes narrowed at the final word, unable to make it out. _"What_ is this story you are so keen for me to hear?" he said.

"Well now, sweet thing, why don't you relax and listen?" She opened to the first page and started to read….

Gold was not the only thing that clunked when he slammed her into the wall. "This was your plan all along, was it not?" he said, dipping his head to lap at the small amount of exposed skin between her necklace and her breasts.

She laughed. "Of course. Naturally it's only because I've made bets about the colour of y… oh…"

His mouth had found her ear. Small, round. He would be lying if he'd never wondered whether the ears of a human were as sensitive as his own. As he let hot breath ghost over it he felt her shudder and he smiled. "This," he said, plucking at the mass of heavy gold draped over her, impeding his progress, a barrier between his hands and lips and an expanse of skin he was suddenly desperate to taste. "It should come off."

She raised an eyebrow. "It's not the only thing that should," she said, running a finger down the front of his breastplate.

He stepped back and a small moan escaped lips dark from kisses. "As you wish."

His armour was easily removed - Danarius had commissioned it from one of the finest armourers in Minrathous. Flexible, durable, intimidating. He had often thought to replace it - but the armour available in Kirkwall was not nearly as good. In the end he endured it for the sake of convenience. It was something else he had stolen from his master, together with his life, and the lyrium in his skin.

"Oh, Maker's first _lucky_ children," Isabela breathed as the breastplate and his undertunic were dropped to the floor. "Aren't you a pretty thing…"

He growled and pushed her back against the wall, his bare chest against her curves. She ground her hips up towards him and he groaned in response. "You think me _pretty?"_

"Kitten, if you were any prettier you'd blind passers by," she said and he blinked. Danarius had wished him to be _intimidating. _Yet he had also been known to call upon others to admire Fenris' form.

The memory was unwelcome.

He laid a palm flat on the mass of gold and jewels on her neck. "I believe I asked this to be removed."

She grinned. "I paused to enjoy the view."

He tugged at the necklace and she rolled her eyes, reaching up to unclasp the heavy thing and setting it gently on a table near her hand.

The skin underneath was paler, and smelled of gold and _woman _and his head tipped forward unconsciously to breathe it in.

She shivered, then gripped the back of his head, encouraging but not pulling. He lapped at her skin, breathed out so he could breathe that intoxicating scent back in, even as his fingers started on the laces of her bodice.

"You're very forceful," she said. "I like it."

He chuckled. "You like a lot of things."

"But I like them _wholeheartedly."_

"Whereas I," he ran his tongue down her neck, tasting sweat, "dislike your taste in literature."

Her hips twitched against his. "Not from where I'm standing."

"One can enjoy the performance of a story without being enamoured of its content."

"Where _did _you pick up your vocabulary, Fenris?"

He bared his teeth. "My former master desired his slaves to _appear _educated."

"Sometimes appearances matter more," her voice had lowered, and he glanced up from his work to see her lower lip caught between her teeth. The fingers at the back of his head worked their way into his hair and he resisted an urge to lean back into them and be groomed like a cat, refocusing on the task in hand.

Her bodice had always seemed to him to be barely containing her flesh - he'd imagined, (in the moments when he let himself admit that he imagined her at all) that when the laces were undone the garment would spring open, and what was underneath would be revealed in its immediate glory.

Instead, as the final cord slipped through his fingers, the cloth parted only when he ran his fingers along the skin beneath, as though he were peeling a fruit. Warm brown skin, full breasts, peaked nipples were exposed, but he kept his eyes trained on her face. Her eyes were locked on his, pupils dark and huge in the dim light.

After all, he was far from the first person to see her disrobed. He did not wish her to think it was merely flesh he was interested in. Indeed, flesh, for all its fevered heat under his hands, had never been something he desired. Perhaps, with Isabela, where it seemed that flesh was all that was on offer, he would be able to work out precisely what it was he _did_.

"You're thinking about this too much," she said suddenly, taking his chin in one hand and turning his face towards hers. "That's not what this is supposed to be about."

He smirked. "Really?"

"Really."

"I…." he stopped, hands on her waist, thumbs circling on her stomach, made easy by sweat. The skin there was smooth. Her hand on his chin flattened so she was cupping his cheek and her expression turned soft.

"What?"

"I am uncertain what it _should _be about, Isabela."

She leaned forward and breathed into the hollow between his neck and his collarbone, sending shivers along his spine, then kissed up to his ear. He stood awkwardly, hands still on her hips, anticipation of where her mouth might land next making tension throb through him. When her lips finally met the shell of his ear he let out an explosive breath, his tattoos flaring briefly as the pleasure shot straight to his groin.

She chuckled. "Elves and their ears," she said gently.

It was the last thing she did gently.

She backed him to the bed. He went willingly, unsure of exactly when she had taken control, but glad to allow it. He disliked submitting to anyone, but he was willing, in this instance, to admit his lack of experience would hamper their pleasure.

He lifted his head to look at her standing in just those ridiculous boots and smalls. She was posing, it was obvious, but he couldn't bring himself to care. Every curve and dip he had imagined was on display for him, and he couldn't deny that they were every bit as magnificent as he had imagined, only they were _there. _

She bent over to undo the laces of her boots. He pushed himself up on his elbows and simply watched as she removed them, then hooked her thumbs under the band of her smalls, looking up through a curtain of hair before pulling them off as well.

She stood and let her hands run over her breasts, lingering at the nipples as she tipped her head back and gasped. When her hands dropped they were peaked and slightly pink. "What do you think?"

He licked his lips. "You are a beautiful woman, Isabela."

"Tell me something I don't know, kitten." She leaned forward, placing her hands next to his hips, and bent her head towards his groin, nuzzling the hardness there. He groaned, but kept his head up where he could see what she was doing. She kissed her way up his chest, one hand undoing the laces of his leggings and reaching inside.

She stopped and let out a deep laugh. "No underclothes at _all _Fenris?"

He grinned. "You never wondered why you could not guess correctly?"

"I always assumed you were lying."

"About something as important as that?" He opened his mouth to say more, but it was suddenly too difficult to talk. Her hands had worked him free of his leggings and her cheek rested against his cock. He could _feel _her smile.

A moment later he felt her lips and tongue.

_"Venehdis, _Isabela…" his hands fisted in her hair and he remembered, in the depths of his passion, not to hold tightly, to let her set the pace, but it was difficult not to buck his hips up into her mouth, difficult to stop himself from finishing right then and there.

"St…stop…" he managed to gasp out. "Stop. I want…"

She lifted her head and smiled at him. "What?"

"Come here." He reached down and pulled her up and on top of him. "I want…"

_"What?" _she said again.

_"You."_

She smiled and adjusted herself, pausing above him and looking down. He couldn't read her expression and he wondered, in that brief moment before she sank downwards, what she was thinking. Then thought fled and he cried out - overwhelmed by so much heat, so _much_ sensation. Again, he let her set the pace, and it was vigorous and satisfying and whited out large sections of his brain until there was just _this - this _thrust, _this _kiss, _this _slide of his hands up her sides, _this _snap of her teeth on his lip, and she was all there was in the world and the world was free of pain.

She tossed her head back, breasts bouncing, and laughed in pleasure and it tipped him over the edge and he shouted as he came, the pleasure more intense than anything he could have imagined.

When he opened his eyes she was still, looking down at him, hands resting on his abdomen, just above where they were still joined.

"You're beautiful," she said.

He blinked, dazed. "So are you," he replied.


End file.
